DBWI France loses the Algerian war

The algerian war for independence was a harsh one, France had owned the land for generations. At some points it seemed like Algeria would be like indochina and be lost forever, but the french pulled through the revolutionaries made too many mistakes and they were crushed.

Some people say that France needed that victory that it restored their pride as a nation, but what if France had lost the war. What would that have done to france? To Algeria and to the world?
 
Well, France would never have become a pariah state if they didn't commit ethic cleansing against the native Algerians, which was basically what they had to do to win the war.
 
Well, France would never have become a pariah state if they didn't commit ethic cleansing against the native Algerians, which was basically what they had to do to win the war.

The only countries that sanctioned them treated them like pariah's were soviet block countries and the arab league, and the arab world more or less let it go during the 80s. Are you sure it was that bad?
 
The only countries that sanctioned them treated them like pariah's were soviet block countries and the arab league, and the arab world more or less let it go during the 80s. Are you sure it was that bad?

Sour grapes, France has never been the most accommodating country to deal with and the oil wealth they got from the Algerian fields didn't exactly do anything to keep a check on the national ego.

As to your question... not entirely sure but I imagine lots and lots of half assed major projects. The whole saga with the CVN's should tell you that the french tend to think big, and if they were any less rich they would have a real issue with the follow through. I do wonder if they weren't as powerful as they are if Europe would have united more, I heard a couple of years ago about some politician or other who wanted to extend the common market to true pan-nationalism. It didn't work because neither the French or the British were interested and frankly, they are the only two that matter in europe. Well the germans think they matter, but, yeah, no.
 
The only countries that sanctioned them treated them like pariah's were soviet block countries and the arab league, and the arab world more or less let it go during the 80s. Are you sure it was that bad?

Well, as far as governments go, yeah, it was only the Soviet Bloc, with some half-assed support from the arabs.

But on the grassroots left, there was quite a bit of support for anti-French boycotts, especially among the campus-activist crowd and the celebrity humanitarian set. There were even those fundraising/awareness concerts held in London and San Francisco in the mid-70s, though I honestly can't recall any of the people who participated. Yoko Ono?
 
The algerian war for independence was a harsh one, France had owned the land for generations. At some points it seemed like Algeria would be like indochina and be lost forever, but the french pulled through the revolutionaries made too many mistakes and they were crushed.

Some people say that France needed that victory that it restored their pride as a nation, but what if France had lost the war. What would that have done to france? To Algeria and to the world?

I don't know, but there probably wouldn't have been that rash of Islamist terrorism in the middle of the '80s, though: a large part of it in regards to France was revenge for the Algerian problem(starting in the fall of 1983, with the 20th anniversary of the surrender of Ben Bella at Algiers).

Oh, and the student protests in the '70s wouldn't have been nearly as nasty, if they'd happened at all, nor would the right-wing in France have been permanently discredited by the end of the '80s, mainly thanks to their willingness to defend the ethnic cleansing that did occur under the paramilitaries(the Constantine Massacre of April 1963 even horrified De Gaulle, and he was a hardened war veteran!), not to mention the Republicans' shitty handling of the Western European recession of '82-'86.....which wouldn't have sparked off the Front National's terrorist campaigns in '93-'96(even including the attempt on the life of the American ambassador in September 1995).

Long story short: it may have benefitted the French political class for a little while, but the country suffered quite a bit in the long run. Had France lost the war, their pride might have suffered for a bit longer, but they would certainly have been rather better off in the long run, especially from 1963-88.

OOC: Yes, by the way, there actually was a Republican Party in France; it existed between 1977 and 1997: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(France)
 
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Right, so first it was not a war. Just because a few peasants decided to get a few riots starting and then move on to terrorism the true French citizens doesn't make it a war, check your facts before you post stuff like that, that'd be nice of you.

For the rest, idk, less good couscous in Paris? Probably less imams 'cause there wouldn't have been the compromise of '86 about muslims getting different duty to the state. Boy, do you remember the rabble it caused? What was the name of that bishop who tried to chain himself to the Grande Mosquée de Paris as a protest?
 
For the rest, idk, less good couscous in Paris? Probably less imams 'cause there wouldn't have been the compromise of '86 about muslims getting different duty to the state. Boy, do you remember the rabble it caused? What was the name of that bishop who tried to chain himself to the Grande Mosquée de Paris as a protest?

And that was only after Valery D'Estaing's resignation in September of 1985, mind(the first French president to do so, ever, IIRC; the emergency elections held in late September narrowly gave the office to the then current P.M., Jacques Chirac). Although he was fairly moderate himself, D'Estaing wasn't exactly terribly willing to grind against the far right.....whereas the former P.M., Jacques Chirac had more guts to shove them aside for the good of the whole country(which included the February Initiative in 1987, which allowed those parts of Algeria still part of the Metropole to be spun off into their own nation by 7 August, 1988); indeed, although Chirac would later lose the 1988 elections, he ended up gaining rather more respect than D'Estaing did, for his efforts.
 
Well, by the time of the War (which, contrary to what many Frenchmen would say, certainly qualified as a war and a failed uprising), the French in Algeria already made up a good portion of the people living in Algeria (something like 1/3). They certainly didn't want to leave France, and with more Frenchmen immigrating every day, time was on the side of the French and against the Algerians.

You'd need one of two PoDs, in my opinion. Either A. One in World War 2. The French government was on the verge of surrender when the Nazis took over Paris in the 1940s, but decided to fight on and eventually evacuate to Algeria. With an official surrender, it's unlikely that you would have so many Frenchmen leaving for Algeria and bolstering the French presence their.

Alternatively, you'd need to prevent the post-war boom in population. This is going to be even harder to do- with so many fleeing Communist Germany, France's population is going to inevitably grow quickly. You'd either need a stronger Allied presence in Germany, to prop up a true German state that can take in German refugees (maybe an earlier D-Day? It would be hard to slow down the USSR when the Nazis started losing the war), the Soviets to not create conditions for the trickle of immigration (again, hard, they wanted revenge and were under Stalin at the time. People forget, but the Soviet Union of 1944 was a far different beast than the one that exists today), or for France to not have a post-war baby boom (very hard as well. The French government was supporting population growth anyways).

Of all those, getting a bigger, united Capitalist Germany would probably be the easiest. If more of Central and Northern Germany ends up under Allied control, instead of just the Rhineland, Bavaria, and Austria, the United States and Britain are probably going to keep it all together rather than split it up, offering a viable alternative to France for Germans fleeing the Soviets.

By the time the Algerian War started, France simply had too much invested in North Africa to let it go. The French public was fully behind keeping the war going, the French in North Africa especially. No matter how much funding they got from the Soviet Bloc, the Algerians were simply too disorganized and not strong enough to beat the French army. Algeria was not Vietnam.
 
Well, by the time of the War (which, contrary to what many Frenchmen would say, certainly qualified as a war and a failed uprising), the French in Algeria already made up a good portion of the people living in Algeria (something like 1/3). They certainly didn't want to leave France, and with more Frenchmen immigrating every day, time was on the side of the French and against the Algerians.

You'd need one of two PoDs, in my opinion. Either A. One in World War 2. The French government was on the verge of surrender when the Nazis took over Paris in the 1940s, but decided to fight on and eventually evacuate to Algeria. With an official surrender, it's unlikely that you would have so many Frenchmen leaving for Algeria and bolstering the French presence their.

Alternatively, you'd need to prevent the post-war boom in population. This is going to be even harder to do- with so many fleeing Communist Germany, France's population is going to inevitably grow quickly. You'd either need a stronger Allied presence in Germany, to prop up a true German state that can take in German refugees (maybe an earlier D-Day? It would be hard to slow down the USSR when the Nazis started losing the war), the Soviets to not create conditions for the trickle of immigration (again, hard, they wanted revenge and were under Stalin at the time. People forget, but the Soviet Union of 1944 was a far different beast than the one that exists today), or for France to not have a post-war baby boom (very hard as well. The French government was supporting population growth anyways).

Of all those, getting a bigger, united Capitalist Germany would probably be the easiest. If more of Central and Northern Germany ends up under Allied control, instead of just the Rhineland, Bavaria, and Austria, the United States and Britain are probably going to keep it all together rather than split it up, offering a viable alternative to France for Germans fleeing the Soviets.

By the time the Algerian War started, France simply had too much invested in North Africa to let it go. The French public was fully behind keeping the war going, the French in North Africa especially. No matter how much funding they got from the Soviet Bloc, the Algerians were simply too disorganized and not strong enough to beat the French army. Algeria was not Vietnam.

OOC-Edit: My sincere apologies to Biden&Ceaser'12: I ended up misunderstanding a significant part of his post. Sorry about the error on my end, folks. :eek:
 
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OOC: Erm....I'm afraid that the POD is a little too late for this scenario(which would have been after WWII). Nor would the Allies have allowed the capitalist Germany to re-unite with Austria. *Ever*.

IC: Wait, what? I mean, sure, the Eurasian Confederation is fairly quasi-socialist when it comes to economics, but it's not exactly like the U.S.S.R.-that setup ended in June 1992 under Gorbachev.

Also, the Soviets never occupied Lower Saxony.....and Austria was forbidden from reuniting with West Germany.

OOC: Listen, this isn't how DBWIs work. The WI can be set in the future of an alternate timeline. Otherwise, the premise itself of this thread is ASB, as by the beginning of the Algerian War, France could not have won with the conditions they had.

Also, it's very rude to negate what someone else said in a DBWI. I see you in a lot of threads like this doing the exact same thing, and the thread ends up going nowhere because of your implausible scenarios and unwillingness to compromise. I'm not trying to insult here, but in the future it might be best if you let someone else take the lead.
 
OOC: Listen, this isn't how DBWIs work. The WI can be set in the future of an alternate timeline. Otherwise, the premise itself of this thread is ASB, as by the beginning of the Algerian War, France could not have won with the conditions they had.

Also, it's very rude to negate what someone else said in a DBWI. I see you in a lot of threads like this doing the exact same thing, and the thread ends up going nowhere because of your implausible scenarios and unwillingness to compromise. I'm not trying to insult here, but in the future it might be best if you let someone else take the lead.

OOC: None of what I've written here was implausible, though, TBH. And my only main issue with your post was that the Western Allies absolutely *would not* have allowed the West Germans to re-annex Austria under *any* circumstances.....and a POD during World War II might well have significantly changed the entire Algeria situation altogether at that: I'll be truthful and admit that the OTL Algerian War isn't exactly an area of expertise for me, though, but based on what I've read, this whole kerfuffle didn't start until sometime in the '50s.

Of course, it's really all up to West what he wants to do in the end, as he's the original thread creator, but without his intervention, I think we should try to work this out ourselves.....so, with that said, what things did I come up with that you believed might be a problem?
 
OOC: None of what I've written here was implausible, though, TBH. And my only main issue with your post was that the Western Allies absolutely *would not* have allowed the West Germans to re-annex Austria under any circumstances.....and a POD during World War II might well have significantly changed the entire Algeria situation altogether at that: I'll be truthful and admit that the OTL Algerian War isn't exactly an area of expertise for me, though, but based on what I've read, this whole kerfuffle didn't start until sometime in the '50s.

Of course, it's really all up to West what he wants to do in the end, as he's the original thread creator, but without his intervention, I think we should try to work this out ourselves.....so, with that said, what things did I come up with that you believed might be a problem?

OOC: I said the whole premise was implausible, which it is. I was referring to other threads when I say that, though not really just you. DBWIs could be handled a lot better than they are.

And I think you're misinterpreting my post. The idea was that the Rhineland, Bavaria, and Austria were (not necessarily still are, but definitely were) independent nations that are German. Not that they were united as one Germany.

I just really don't like people negating each other. I made sure to craft my post in such a way that it didn't contradict what has already been said, and a PoD in '40 certainly works for this premise. I don't really see the problem with it.
 
OOC: I said the whole premise was implausible, which it is. I was referring to other threads when I say that, though not really just you. DBWIs could be handled a lot better than they are.

And I think you're misinterpreting my post. The idea was that the Rhineland, Bavaria, and Austria were (not necessarily still are, but definitely were) independent nations that are German. Not that they were united as one Germany.

I just really don't like people negating each other. I made sure to craft my post in such a way that it didn't contradict what has already been said, and a PoD in '40 certainly works for this premise. I don't really see the problem with it.

OOC: Oh. Sorry I misunderstood you then. :eek: In my defense, though, as for the German situation, it didn't seem clear to me then then that Germany had been balkanized; however, though, I realize that I accidentally overlooked a few things, upon re-reading your post.

Edit: It's been done. Again, apologies for the errors on my part.

IC: Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about the Morgenthau Plan, didn't I? Apologies. :eek:

Anyway, though, I'm not sure how a united Germany would deal with the French situation myself.....although the Austrian President was willing to support the French against the Algerians, the Bavarians were divided, and the Rhinelanders were rather opposed to the whole war to begin with.
 
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OOC: Oh. Sorry I misunderstood then. :eek: In my defense, though, as for the German situation, it didn't seem clear to me then that Germany had been balkanized; however, though, with this in mind, this is actually a fairly plausible alternative to the OTL scenario, in my opinion, at least. I'll go ahead and edit my post.....

IC: Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about the Morgenthau Plan! :eek:

OOC: Thanks for compromising. I'm glad we've gotten things sorted out:). This is actually a good DBWI, even if we put the PoD farther back.:p

IC: Not to say the Allies had much of a choice. Morgenthau outlined a plan that was pretty similar to what ended up happening, and everyone ended up calling it that, but it was really Stalin's plan when you get down to it.

Regardless, it seems everyone's forgotten it nowadays, what with reunification between the Ruhr and Germany. To me, at least, a divided Germany seems like distant history.
 
And that was only after Valery D'Estaing's resignation in September of 1985, mind(the first French president to do so, ever, IIRC; the emergency elections held in late September narrowly gave the office to the then current P.M., Jacques Chirac). Although he was fairly moderate himself, D'Estaing wasn't exactly terribly willing to grind against the far right.....whereas the former P.M., Jacques Chirac had more guts to shove them aside for the good of the whole country(which included the February Initiative in 1987, which allowed those parts of Algeria still part of the Metropole to be spun off into their own nation by 7 August, 1988); indeed, although Chirac would later lose the 1988 elections, he ended up gaining rather more respect than D'Estaing did, for his efforts.

Im looking at my history book and the french definition of 'nation' for the metropole was essentally like the american definition of state. Algeria has the ability to elect a govenor, create laws for their own territory and have their own tax base for local use...

But their not independent.


That said my history book does show that one of the provinces of Algeria was spun off into its own country and the restive part of the population was moved there rather forcibly. That said the book was pretty biased and written by a soviet author.

Cant remember for the life of me which province got kicked out.

Iiizi? Adrar, tindouf, Tammaghahashet? I know it was in the south and it was full of desert.

algeria-map.gif
 
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OOC: Thanks for compromising. I'm glad we've gotten things sorted out:). This is actually a good DBWI, even if we put the PoD farther back.:p

IC: Not to say the Allies had much of a choice. Morgenthau outlined a plan that was pretty similar to what ended up happening, and everyone ended up calling it that, but it was really Stalin's plan when you get down to it.

Regardless, it seems everyone's forgotten it nowadays, what with reunification between the Ruhr and Germany. To me, at least, a divided Germany seems like distant history.

OOC: No problem; also glad we managed to work it out. :cool:

Im looking at my history book and the french definition of 'nation' for the metropole was essentally like the american definition of state. Algeria has the ability to elect a govenor, create laws for their own territory and have their own tax base for local use...

But their not independent.


That said my history book does show that one of the provinces of Algeria was spun off into its own country and the restive part of the population was moved there rather forcibly. That said the book was pretty biased and written by a soviet author.

Cant remember for the life of me which province got kicked out.

Iiizi? Adrar, tindouf, Tammaghahashet? I know it was in the south and it was full of desert.

IC: I think it was Tammanghasset.
 
OOC: No problem; also glad we managed to work it out. :cool:



IC: I think it was Tammanghasset.


Double checked it and your right.....

also checked where the oil was, man the french made sure they held pretty much all the oil. Explains why france is doing so well for itself though.

Algeria_IEA_oil_and_gas_map-1024x622.jpg
 
Well that and all the mines from Haute-Volta. The bloody end to these RIOTS (not a war) sure showed every other movement in Africa that it was not the greatest idea to ask for independence.
I believe that was the catalyst to the creation of the autonomous Afrique Francaise and the incorporation of Gabon. I mean sure it's not the richest part of the world and a couple companies are basically cutting fiefdoms there but hey, at least they're not at war. It's been shown in so many studies that left independent, it would just turn into a continent wide war. There wasn't much of a choice to stay there fr anyone who had a heart.
 
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