| 1914 | August 3 | Germany declares war on France. 173,000 Algerians will be mobilized during the conflict. 26,150 Moslems and 12,000 Christians and Jews will be killed. |
| August 4 | The German cruiser Goeben, flying the Russian flag, shells Philippeville but retreats in the face of return fire from Fort El Kantara. Twenty three people including 4 civilians and 17 Zouaves are killed on shore. |
| | A German cruiser shells Bône causing minor damage. |
| 1916 | September | The call up of the 26,000 man military class of 1917 sparks an open revolt in the Constantine region. |
| December 1 | Father Charles de Foucauld, the leader of a long and vigorous campaign against slavery in the Sahara, is murdered by Senoussis tribesmen from Libya who were armed by the German intelligence services. |
| 1919 | May 16 | Prince Louis II of Monaco, having no legitimate heir, legally adopts his daughter Charlotte to prevent the succession of a German prince to the throne of Monaco. French President Raymond Poincaré and Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Pinchon sponsor the adoption. |
| During the Year | Pierre Benoit’s novel L’Atlantide set in the Algiers of 1894 is published. The tale of friendship between two Legionnaires and their rivalry for the affections of Queen Antinea of Atlantis whom they encounter while exploring the Hogar region of the Algerian Sahara is filmed six times in silent and sound versions by French, German and American directors. |
| 1920 | January 30 | Two of three Bréguet biplanes en route to Dakar from France arrive in Algiers (the other having abandoned the expedition at Istres), where they are joined by five other planes. |
| February 3 | The seven Bréguets depart Algiers for Dakar. |
| February 14 | Four of the seven Bréguets reach Tamanrasset in southern Algeria. |
| February 18 | Two Bréguets depart Tamanrasset for Timbuktu. One of them crashes during the morning. The pilot and mechanic are unhurt but General Laperrine is seriously injured. |
| March 5 | General Laperrine, dies of his injuries. |
| March 14 | The pilot and mechanic of General Laperrine’s airplane are rescued by a Mahérist patrol. |
| During the Year | Plon, one of France’s most highly regarded publishers, snaps up Saada the Moroccan Woman, the first novel by 27 year old Blida native Elissa Rhais. La Revue des Deux Mondes, a prestigious Paris literary magazine, publishes her short story Le café chantant soon afterwards. |
| | Explorer Konrad Killian fails in his attempts to interest Paris in prospecting for mineral and petroleum deposits in the Sahara. |
| | The formation of exclusively Moslem sports teams is prohibited by decree. |
| 1921 | December 16 | Camille Saint Saëns dies from pneumonia at age 86 in Algiers. A euglogist at the composer’s state funeral in Paris notes that, “Throughout his life, Camille Saint Saëns was mad about Algeria. He raved about its sun-kissed shores; he worshiped its interior. 'No sooner am I there,' he said, 'than, instantly, I'm cheerier!' He sometimes tried Morocco, but he found it much inferior." Another noted, "His oldest friends, in unison, bemoaned this curious mania. 'Why don't you go to Chad?' they cried, 'or even Mauretania?' A doctor, asked to intervene, talked darkly of hysteria. He thanked them for their views, but said he still preferred Algeria." |
| 1922 | December 17 | Georges-Marie Haardt, Louis Audoin-Dubreuil and a team of 10 people, including several army officers and a geographer depart Touggourt, Algeria for Timbuktu in French Sudan. |
| During the Year | Emir Khaled, grandson of Abd el Kader and Captain of the Spahis, is exiled for forming a party promoting the equality of rights and responsibilities and the entry of Moslems to all fields of employment as well as the separation of the Mosque and the State. |
| | Ferdinand Duchêne’s novel Au pas lent des caravans (The Slow Steps of the Caravans) is published. |
| | The last lion in the Atlas Mountains is killed in Algeria. |
| 1923 | January 7 | The 5 Citroën Kégresse tracked vehicles of the Haardt-Audouin mission; Golden Beetle, Silver Crescent, Flying Tortoise, Ox of Apis and Crawling Caterpillar complete the first direct link between Algeria and French West Africa. The first trans-Saharan mail delivered by car is handed to Colonel Mangeot, commander of the Timbuktu region. |
| 1924 | October 28 | Eight Citroën Kégresse half-tracks depart Colomb Bechar, Algeria on the Black Cruise, an 8 month 28,000 kilometer expedition led by Georges-Marie Haardt across Africa to Madagascar. |
| During the Year | The Communist Party of Algeria is formed as a branch of the French Communist Party under Messali Hadj. |
| 1925 | May 12 | Maurice Viollette becomes Governor General of Algeria. |
| May | Doctor Molle’s anti-Semitic Latin League wins the Oran municipal elections with a 2,000 vote majority. Molle is supported in his campaign by Le Petit Oranais. The newspaper features an anti-Semitic quote from Luther on its masthead until forced to remove it under pressure from Governor General Viollette. In later years Le Petit will decorate its front page with swastikas. |
| 1926 | February 20 | Messali Hadj founds Étoile Nord Africaine (ENA), a nationalist movement promoting Algerian independence. |
| 1927 | During the Year | Governor General Viollette prohibits the export of hard wheat in an effort to stem hunger among the Moslems. The action sparks intense anger among the French colonists. The Right dubs him, “Viollete the Arab”. To the Communists he is, “the third cop of France”. |
| | Messali Hadj speaks of Algerian independence for the first time during a speech to the Anti-Imperialist Congress of Brussels. |
| June 26 | Messali Hadj, Habib Bourguiba and Ho Chi Minh address a meeting of Étoile Nord Africaine at La salle de la Mutualité in Paris. |
| November 20 | Governor General Maurice Viollette resigns and returns to France. In his farewell address, he warns the colonists that, “The indigenes of Algeria, by your fault, do not have a fatherland yet. They are looking for one. They ask you for the French fatherland. Give them this quickly or they will find another one.” |
| 1928 | | Ferdinand Duchêne’s novel Le berger d'Akfadou (The Shepard of Akfadou) is published. |
| 1930 | | Le Grande Exposition Coloniale du Centenaire is held in Algiers to mark the centennial of the French conquest. |
| 1931 | | Ferhat Abbas founds the journal l'Égalité which campaigns for equality between Europeans and Moslems in Algeria. |
| | The Institute of Meteorology and Astronomical Physics is established at the University of Algiers. |
| 1932 | | The growing economic crisis reawakens a slightly dormant anti-semitism; Le Petit Oranais strikes a furious tone; immense swastikas painted with the tar appear on the walls of Oran. The Juan Bastos tobacco stores decorate their cigarette paper books with dozens of swastikas without commenting to say if it serves as a political statement or a targeted advertisement. Anti-Semites are elected to the Chamber of Deputies from Oran and Sidi Bel Abbès. |
| 1934 | | In Oran, the mayor, the ex-Abbé Lambert, capped with a casque colonial and gird by a tricolour scarf calls for a general mobilization against the Jews and the Popular Front. The founder of "Amitiés Lambert", assumes the anti-Jewish policy of the "Latin Unions" and declares the Popular Front a manifestation of Jewish imperialism. |
| August 5 - 8 | Moslem rioters attack Jewish shops and homes in Constantine after a Zouave urinates on the wall of a mosque. 27 people are killed and 29 injured. |
| October 18 | The mayors of 100 Algerian towns announce that they will no longer cooperate with the French administration until restrictions on wine exports to metropolitan France are relaxed. |
| 1935 | February 1 | A brawl between police and native troops in Sétif becomes a general riot. Jewish shops and a police station are ransacked. |
| During the Year | Messali Hadj is released after a year in prison. Hadj goes to Switzerland where he encounters the Druze emir Sheik Arslan, one of the grand figures of the pan-Arab Islamist movement, who persuades him to abandon Communism and seek a rapprochement with the Oulémas (Islamic party). Hadj reconstitutes his movement under the name Union Nationale des Musulmans Nord Africains (National Union of North African Moslems). |
| | Senator Viollette, advisor to the government on Algerian matters, answers critics who oppose the extension of citizenship to Algerian Moslem. During a Senate debate, he points out that Moslems residing in the French Settlements in India and in Senegal are citizens. When the opposition declares polygamy an obstacle, Viollette evokes the presence of Senegalese Senator Galandou Diouf, a notorious polygamist, among them. |
| | Albert Camus joins a group of young leftist intellectuals in founding the Théâtre du Travail (The Workers' Theater) in Algiers. Camus' first experience as a playwright comes when the group creates a "collective play" entitled Révolte dans les Asturies. |
| 1936 | February 23 | Ferhat Abbas declares, “If I had discovered the Algerian nation, I would be nationalist. However I would not die for the Algerian homeland because this homeland does not exist. I have not found it. I have questioned history, I have questioned the living and the dead, I have visited the cemeteries; no one has spoken to me.... We have thus drawn aside, once and for all, the clouds and the chimeras, to definitively bind our future to the work of France in this country. ... But without the emancipation of the indigenes, French Algeria will not last.” |
| March 11 | Messali Hadj returns to Algeria and founds the Parti Populaire Algerienne (PPA) whose program demands absolute equality between the Europeans and the indigenous Algerians. |
| June – July | Reports of Arab – Jewish troubles in Palestine and the killing of a Moslem worker by a Jewish farm manager spark anti-Jewish riots throughout Algeria. The Jewish quarters of Oran and Constantine are attacked. The Governor General dispatches the Gendarmie Mobile to those cities as well as Algiers. |
| August 2 | Messali Hadj delivers a pro-independence speech before a large crowd at the municipal stadium in Algiers. |
| August | The signing of a Franco-Syrian treaty granting virtual independence to Syrian Arabs gives encouragement to nationalist movements in Algeria. Fears of further unrest intensify the outflow of capital from the country. |
| | The French Government extends wheat price controls enacted for France to Algeria. |
| September 8 | A cabinet decree admits Algerian natives to competitive examinations for positions in the Army. |
| December 30 | The Blum – Viollette Bill, “relative to the political rights of certain categories of French subjects”, is published in the Journal Officiel. The measure would grant the right to vote in national elections to about 25,000 Moslems living in the Algerian departments. They would be chosen from an elite composed of soldiers, diplomats, local officials, decorated veterans and trade union officials. |
| During the Year | The French Communist Party grants autonomy to the Communist Party of Algeria. |
| | Albert Camus joins Le Parti du Peuple Algérien and is expelled from the Communist Party of Algeria as a Trotskyite. |
| | Maurice Laban, a founding member of the Algerian Communist Party, joins the International Brigades to fight in the Spanish Civil War. |
| | The Popular Front Government rescinds a decree banning the formation of exclusively Moslem sports teams. |
| 1937 | January 15 | The Congress of Algerian Mayors rejects the Blum – Viollette proposal. |
| March 11 | The French mayors of 11 Algerian towns resign in protest of the proposed Blum – Viollette Bill. |
| July 20 | The Institute of Saharan Studies is established at the University of Algiers. |
| During the Year | The Blum – Viollette Bill splits the Popular Front. The Socialist and Communist support the measure but a majority of Radicals join with conservatives to keep the measure bottled up in parliamentary committees. |
| | Albert Camus is hired as a reporter for Alger Républicain, a socialist paper. There, he compiles a detailed account of the lives of poor Arabs in Kabylia which is later published as a collection of essays on the conditions and ethnic discrimination faced by the Arabs in Actuelles III. |
| | Pépé le Moko, director Julien Duvivier’s film noir, starring Jean Gabin as a Paris gangster hiding in the Algiers Casbah, scores a success at the box office and is remade twice by Hollywood. |
| 1938 | February 21 | Marcel Cerdan, a native of Sidi Bel Abbes, wins the welterweight boxing championship of France in a 12 round match against fellow Algerian Omar Kouidri in Casablanca. |
| During the Year | Ferhat Abbas founds the Union Populaire Algérienne pour la Conquête des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen (The Algerian Popular Union for the Acquistion of the Rights of Man and of Citizen). The party promotes assimilation with France and the introduction of Arabic as the language of instruction in the schools. |
| 1939 | March 6 | Marcel Cerdan wins the European Welterweight Boxing Championship in a 15 round match against Italian Saverio Turiello in Milan. |
| April 21 | A law supressing incitement of racial hatred forces Algeria’s anti-Semites into temporary hiding. |
| September 3 | France declares war on Germany. 350,000 men are mobilized in French North Africa. |
| September 26 | Messali Hadj’s Parti Populaire Algerienne (PPA) is banned by the government and becomes a clandestine organization. |
| During the Year | The Government decides to award Elissa Rhais the Legion of Honor for her services to literature but during a routine investigation of her past it is discovered that the writer is a total illiterate who, on the occasion of her mother’s death, had signed the council register with an “X”. Her works were in fact authored by her nephew Raoul Tabet. |
| 1940 | | Felix Boyer composes C’est Nous Les Africains. The Army of Africa later adopts the song of imperial solidarity as its anthem. |
| June 14 | Premier Paul Reynaud accepts Charles de Gaulle’s suggestion that the Government flee Bordeaux and continue to fight the war from Algiers. De Gaulle departs for London to arrange for British assistance with the move. |
| June 15 | Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, General Maxime Weygand and Admiral Jean Darlan inform Reynaud that they will refuse to support a move to Algeria. |
| June 16 | The Cabinet defeats Premier Reynaud’s motion in favor of union with the British Empire and a move to Algeria. |
| June 19 | Foreign Minister Paul Baudouin informs the Spanish Ambassador, Josè Lequeria, his Government is preparing to send President Albert Lebrun, the presidents of the senate and the chamber of deputies, Vice Premier Camille Chautemps and a few other ministers to Algeria rather than risk their capture by the Germans in advance of an armistice. |
| June 20 | Raphaël Alibert forges Marshal Pétain’s signature on a letter ordering the President and his ministers to postpone their departure for Algeria until further notice. |
| June 21 | Marshal Pétain tells Paul Baudouin that if President Lebrun insists on leaving for Algeria he will be arrested. |
| June 22 | A Franco-German armistice is signed ending the Battle of France. 5,300 Algerians including 2,600 Moslems have been killed in the fighting. Algeria remains outside the zone of occupation. |
| | General Weygand dispatches General Louis Koeltz to Algiers for a showdown with General Auguste Nougès who opposes the armistice and insists he can hold North Africa if the fleet is not surrendered. |
| June 23 | General Koeltz meets with the cabinet and informs the ministers that General Nougès has agreed that French forces are too weak to hold North Africa in the event of a German attack launched from Spanish territory. |
| June 24 | General Weygand wires General Nougès, “in view of the attitude of the British government and the activity of its diplomatic agents in trying to organize a rebellion against the French government,” you are to expel the British liaison mission in North Africa, “with the briefest delay.” |
| June 25 | General Nougès wires General Weygand, “The government, acting as it has in the atmosphere of panic, has not been able to recognize the moral element and force which North Africa represents and which, with Navy and Air Force, could hold out until our enemies are exhausted.” |
| June 26 | General Weygand dissolves the North African Command and orders General Nougès to leave Algiers and assume the post of Resident General in Morocco. |
| June 27 | General Dillon, the British Military liaison in Algiers, is asked to leave French North Africa. |
| July 3 | Force H, the battle cruiser HMS Hood, battleships HMS Valiant and Resolution, aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and several smaller ships, under the command of Admiral James Somerville, makes contact with the French Atlantic Fleet under the command of Admiral Marcel Bruno Gensoul at Mers el Kébir. |
| | At 9 a.m. Admiral Somerville delivers an ultimatum. "...it is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian enemy... We must make sure that they are not used against us by the common foe." "Sail with us and continue to fight for victory against the Germans and Italians." Or, "Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port." Or, "Sail with us to some French port in the West Indies ... or perhaps to the United States..." "If you refuse these fair offers, I must, with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within six hours. Failing that, I have orders ... to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German or Italian hands." |
| | Admiral Gensoul relays Somerville’s ultimatum to the French Admiralty as, "Sink your ships within six hours or we shall use force to make you. My response: Force will be met with force." No mention is made of the alternatives proposed by Somerville. |
| | At 5:54 p.m., three hours beyond the deadline given in the ultimatum and after fruitless talks between Gensoul and Somerville’s aide Captain Holland, Force H opens fire. The battleship Bretange blows up and sinks. The Provence and Dunkerque are heavily damaged. The cruiser Strasbourg is the only capital ship to escape. It limps home to Toulon along with a squadron of cruisers based nearby in Oran which somehow escape the Royal Navy’s notice. 1,297 French officers and men die in less than a quarter hour and with them any hope that a substantial portion of the French fleet will rejoin the battle against the Axis. Of fifty flag officers in the French Admiralty only one, Emile Muselier, will offer his services to the Free French. |
| | Admiral Darlan decides to mount a reprisal operation against the Royal Navy and orders to General François d' Astier de la Vigerie, Commander of French Air Forces in Morocco, to launch an attack on the British ships anchored at Gibraltar. General d’Astier refuses to obey the order which Darlan then directs to General Bouscat who agrees to undertake the mission before Marshal Pétain decides to cancel it at the last minute. |
| July 20 | Admiral Jean Charles Abrial is appointed Governor General of Algeria. |
| September 15 | Algerian Communist Party leader Maurice Laban is sentenced to life at hard labor for his opposition to the Vichy regime. |
| September 25 - 26 | Vichy aircraft based in Algeria stage three raids on the British colony of Gibraltar. |
| October 7 | Vichy Minister of the Interior Marcel Peyrouton abrogates the Crémieux Decree of 1870. Algerian Jews are stripped of their French citizenship. |
| During the Year | Albert Camus leaves Algiers for Paris, hoping to establish himself as a reporter in the leftist press but returns to Algeria at the time of the occupation and marries Francine Faure, a mathematics instructor. |
| 1941 | January | Philosopher Andre Bénichou organizes private schools in Oran to accommodate Jewish students excluded from state institutions. He asks his friend Albert Camus to instruct the French courses. Shortly thereafter, Camus is declared a, "threat to national security" and "advised" to leave Algeria. He returns to unoccupied France carrying a single suitcase with white shirts, ties, a toothbrush, and the incomplete manuscripts of The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Plague. |
| March 20 | A military tribunal in Algiers sentences Messali Hadj to 16 years at hard labor and imposes a 20 year travel ban. |
| March | Ferhat Abbas dedicates a respectful memoir entitled L’Algerie de Demain (The Algeria of Tomarrow) to Marshal Pétain. Abbas is rewarded with an appointment to the Algerian financial commission which he resigns a year later at the urging of American Consul General Robert Murphy. |
| | Henri d'Astier arrives in Oran after a two month journey from Occupied France where his resistance network, the Franco-Belgian Chain, has been broken up. |
| July 16 | General Weygand is appointed Governor General of Algeria and commander of French ground and air forces in North Africa. |
| November 20 | General Weygand is recalled at the insistence of the Germans who suspect him of preparing for a French reentry into the war on the Allied side. General Yves Charles Châtel is appointed acting Governor General of Algeria. |
| 1942 | January | Henri d' Astier de la Vigerie, Jean Rigault, Jacques Lemaigre-Dubreuil, Jacques Tarbé de Saint-Hardouin and Colonel Van Hecke form the Committee of Five. Henri d' Astier is sent to Algiers to coordinate the Committee’s resistance activities in the capital. |
| January 30 | Communications Minister Jean Berthelot inaugurates the first section of the Mediterranean – Niger Railway linking Bou Arfa with Colomb Béchar via the mining town of Kenadza. |
| July 3 | Governor General Châtel visits the Berber community of Deni Abram for ceremonies officially renaming the town Village Maréchal Pétain. |
| July 11 | The Institute of Urbanism is established at the University of Algiers. |
| July 25 | President Roosevelt informs Winston Churchill and senior American military advisors of his intention to seize French North Africa. |
| July 30 | President Roosevelt summons his military advisors to the White House where he notifies them of the decision to defer plans for a cross Channel invasion of France in favor of Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. |
| August 13 | General Dwight D. Eisenhower, already in London preparing for Operation Torch, is named Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in North Africa. |
| August 30 | President Roosevelt cables Prime Minister Churchill, “I am reasonably sure a simultaneous landing by British and Americans would result in full resistance by all French in Africa, whereas an initial landing without British ground forces offers a real chance that there would be no French resistance or only a token resistance...” |
| September 5 | Allied military planners decide to make the initial landings of Operation Torch at 3 sites in French Morocco and at half dozen beaches around Algiers and Oran. |
| September 21 | General Eisenhower sets Sunday, November 8th as D-Day for Operation Torch. |
| October 17 | President Roosevelt authorizes Robert Murphy to make such arrangements with Admiral Darlan as may aid the success of Operation Torch. |
| October 21 | General Mark Clark is put ashore near Cherchel by HMS Seraph. The Deputy Commander of Operation Torch meets with Consul General Robert Murphy and General Charles Mast, Vichy’s senior commander in Algiers, to arrange assistance in minimizing resistance to the Allied landings. General Mast urges the Allies to arrange General Henri Giraud’s escape from France so that the later may take command of French forces in North Africa and rally them to their cause. |
| November 4 | Robert Murphy relays a message from General Mast informing him that Vichy has ordered its troops to defend North Africa at all cost. |
| November 5 | An Allied task force carrying 72,000 American and British troops bound for Oran and Algiers enters the Straits of Gibraltar. |
| | General Eisenhower arrives at the Operation Torch command post in Gibraltar on board a B-17 from Bournemouth. |
| | General Henri Giraud is plucked from a beach on the Cote d’Azur by the submarine HMS Seraph. |
| November 6 | Admiral Darlan lays a wreath at the military cemetery in Mers el Kébir then travels to Algiers where he reviews a military parade with Governor General Châtel and General Juin. |
| November 7 | U.S.S. Thomas Stone is stopped dead in the water when struck by a torpedo off the Spanish coast. The 1,400 troops on board abandon ship and continue their journey to Algiers in the landing craft. |
| | General Giraud arrives in Gibraltar where he insists that he assume supreme command of the Allied forces once they have landed in North Africa. |
| | Operation Villain commences at 9 p.m. with the departure of American paratroops from airfields in Britain. Allied commanders believe they will encounter little, if any, resistance at their destination, the airfields at Tafaraoui and La Sénia outside Oran. |
| | American Consul General Robert Murphy receives a coded radio message from London, “Allo Robert, Franklin arrivé” signaling the start of Allied operations. |
| November 8 | Shortly after midnight, French resistance fighters led by Henri d' Astier de la Vigerie, launch a coup against the Vichy regime in Algiers. The partisans seize the Army headquarters, the police, power and radio stations and the telephone switchboard. |
| | Robert Murphy arrives at Villa des Oliviers in suburban El Biar at 12:45 a.m. to inform General Juin, the Army commander, of the impending Allied landings. Juin expresses sympathy for the Allied cause but insists that any order of assistance he gives maybe countermanded by Admiral Darlan and in that case the troops will obey his superior. |
| | Admiral Darlan arrives at Villa des Oliviers. He insists he must remain faithful to his oath to Pétain and defend North Africa but agrees to contact Vichy for further instructions. |
| | Henri d’Astier’s partisans take control of Villa des Oliviers and place Darlan and Juin under arrest. The Admiral’s message is handed to Murphy’s assistant Kenneth Pendar for delivery to the Admiralty. Pendar decides that the dispatch lacks sufficient enthusiasm for the Allied cause and discards it. |
| | The Resistance coup collapses in the early morning hours. Vichy loyalists retake the iniative in the absence of a timely Allied landing. Villa des Oliviers is retaken. Darlan and Juin are freed. Murphy and Pendar are held captive. |
| | Operation Reservist - HMS Walney and HMS Hartland, ex-U.S. Coast Guard cutters carrying 392 American troops, storm the harbor at Oran in the predawn hours hoping to seize the port intact. The ships are quickly sunk by fire from the shore batteries. Allied casualties, half of them dead, top 90%. The French defenders scuttle three floating drydocks rendering the port unusable for weeks. |
| | Operation Terminal - British destroyers HMS Broke and HMS Malcolm storm the harbor defenses at Algiers in an attempt to land American troops and capture the port intact. Shore batteries badly damage the Malcolm and force it to retreat seaward. Broke breaks through the boom blocking the harbor entrance on its fourth attempt and docks at the Louis Billiard wharf. The Americans capture a power station, a fuel depot and several wharves. Broke is hit 22 times by French artillery and sinks as it attempts to put to sea. Three hours later, the stranded Americans surrender rather than risk annihilation at the hands of Vichy tanks. |
| | Operation Torch - The U.S. Army 1st Ranger Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William O. Darby captures the coastal batteries guarding Arzew 16 miles east of Oran. The main body of the American invasion force, the U.S. 1st Infantry and 1st Armored Divisions under the command of General Terry Allen, follows soon after. Another 5,000 American infantrymen under the command of General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. land at Les Andalouses 15 miles west of Oran. Additional armored units land at Cape Fidalgo 30 miles west of Oran. Initial resistance is light but the American advance stalls in the face of fierce rifle and artillery fire at St.Cloud a few miles west of Arzew. |
| | American and British commandos capture the gun emplacements guarding the eastern side of Algiers Bay at Cape Matifou. The main body of the 25,000 man American force lands at Sidi Ferruch 25 miles west of Algiers. A 7,000 man British force lands yet another 20 miles further west at Castiglione. |
| | Maison Blanche airfield, east of Algiers, is surrendered to the Americans shortly after dawn. The first RAF Hurricanes arrive from Gibraltar at 10 a.m. |
| | British troops marching from Castgilione capture the airfield at Blida and continue their advance on Algiers from the south. |
| | Luftwaffe dive bombers based in Italy sink the transport ship USS Leedstown off Cape Matifou. |
| | At 3 p.m. Admiral Darlan requests the assistance of Robert Murphy in negotiating a ceasefire. |
| | At 8 p.m. General Juin surrenders Algiers to Major General Charles Ryder of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division. French forces are permitted to retain their arms and confined to barracks. The Americans captured in the assault on the port of Algiers are released. Shortly thereafter, Admiral Darlan announces that he has given up control of Vichy forces outside the capital thus permitting the fight to continue in the rest of North Africa. |
| | Operation Villain - The operation becomes a debacle due to navigational errors and unanticipated French resistance. One of the 39 planes in the convoy lands at Gibraltar, two land at Fez in French Morocco and four others in neutral Spanish Morocco where the men are interned. Three planes reach La Sénia where they are met with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire. The main body of C-47s lands on the Sebkra d’Oran, a dry lakebed 20 miles south of the city, where it accidentally joins ranks with the U.S. 1st Armored Division. One party of paratroopers proceeds to Tafaraoui on foot while another returns to the air only to be shotdown by French fighters. |
| November 9 | General Giraud arrives at Blida from Gibraltar. General Clark arrives in Algiers several hours later with orders from Eisenhower to assist Giraud in taking command of the French forces and to negotiate a general ceasefire. Clark finds Admiral Darlan still in firm control of the French military. |
| | French troops rebuff repeated assaults on their positions at St. Cloud. General Allen decides to bypass the town rather than risk inflicting heavy civilian casualties with an artillery bombardment. |
| | Survivors of the ill fated Operation Villain arrive at Tafaraoui Airfield by truck. |
| November 10 | Generals Clark and Ryder meet with Admiral Darlan and his staff at the Hotel St. Georges on the Rue Michelet. Darlan rebuffs demands that he order an immediate ceasefire throughout North Africa citing the need for Marshal Pétain’s permission and fears of a German invasion of unoccupied France. Darlan relents at 9 a.m. while Robert Murphy discusses the need for French cooperation in administering civil affairs in the region with Clark. Upon hearing the news of Darlan’s accession, Clark announces that, "all civil and military authorities will be maintained in their present functions." |
| | General Giraud arrives at Dar Mahidine and is received by Admiral Darlan who offers to turn command over to him. Giraud agrees to accept Darlan’s leadership with proviso that Giraud be named commander of the troops. |
| | General Robert Boisseau surrenders the Oran Division to General Terry Allen at noon. |
| | Marshal Pétain sacks Darlan and order resistance in North Africa to continue. Darlan rescinds his ceasefire order at 3 p.m. at which time General Clark orders him to be placed under arrest. |
| November 11 | General de Gaulle broadcasts an appeal from London, “Soldiers, sailors, aviators, civil servants, French colonists of North Africa, arise! Help our Allies! Join them without reservation. Go! This is the great moment! The hour of good will and courage is here. Everywhere the enemy weakens and bends. Frenchmen of North Africa! Through you we will return to the line on the other side of the Mediterranean and there the war will be won thanks to France!” |
| | Admiral Darlan, yet again, agrees to Allied demands following the German invasion of the unoccupied zone. General Clark rescinds his arrest order. Darlan orders Vichy commanders in Tunisia to resist the Germans. |
| | British troops land at Bougie, 100 miles east of Algiers, unopposed but heavy seas force cancellation of another landing at Djidjelli 30 miles further east. RAF fighters at Djidjelli are grounded for lack of fuel leaving the Bougie force without air cover. |
| | Luftwaffe bombers attack the Royal Navy taskforce in Bougie harbor. HMS Atawea is struck by a torpedo and burns for 7 hours then sinks. HMS Cathay is abandoned after an unexploded bomb lands in the gallery. Cathay catches fire and sinks. |
| November 12 | Admiral Darlan suspends his order to the Tunisian command pending approval from General Nouguès, Marshal Pétain’s delegate in North Africa. |
| | General de Gaulle informs the Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, Admiral Harold Stark, that there is no chance of the Free French coming to an agreement with Admiral Darlan. |
| | HMS Tynwald strikes a mine in Bougie harbor and sinks. The Luftwaffe returns to Bougie at dawn and sinks HMS Karnja. |
| | British and American commandos make an unopposed landing at Bône. |
| | German air raids on Bône destroy the railway station, a cinema, 18 of 22 piers and the grain elevator in the port. |
| November 13 | Generals Noguès, Châtel and Bergeret; the Vichy commanders in North Africa, meet with Admiral Darlan at the St. Georges Hotel in Algiers and agree to recognize him as High Commissioner for North Africa. General Eisenhower arrives from Gibraltar and accepts the agreement. |
| November 14 | An American parachute battalion captures Tébessa on the Tunisian border along the route to the Kasserine Pass. |
| November 15 | Admiral Darlan issues a formal announcement that he is assuming the role of High Commissioner for North and West Africa, "in the name of Marshal Pétain". |
| | A general mobilization is declared in North Africa. 173,000 Moslems and 168,000 Europeans will be called up for service in the French 1st Army before the war ends. 6,000 Moslems and 10,000 Europeans will be killed in action. |
| November 18 | General François d’Astier de la Vigerie arrives in London from France and meets with General de Gaulle. During their conversation d’Astier declares, “everyone in France is unanimous on the following two points; Darlan is a traitor who must be liquidated. Giraud has a duty to join the Free French.” |
| November 21 | The Luftwaffe destroys a dozen Allied planes in raids on airfields near Algiers. B-17s are withdrawn to the safety of fields near Oran. |
| November 22 | General Clark, acting on orders from President Roosevelt, agrees to recognize Admiral Darlan as High Commissioner provided the later acts in accordance with American wishes. The Committee of Five despite disappointment over Roosevelt ’s acceptance of Darlan as a, “temporary expedient”, agree to enter the government. Henri d’Astier becomes Interior Minister with control over the police and intelligence services. |
| | Henri d’Astier organizes the Free Corps of Africa, a paramilitary group composed of young resistance fighters who assisted him in the November 8th coup and other youths eager to take part in the battle against the Germans. A friend, Yves de Mangeat-Lie, places a large farm located at Cape Matifou, 20 minutes from Algiers, at his disposal. This enables d’Astier to train and shelter 200 men. |
| | Henri d' Astier begins to plot the ouster of Admiral Darlan during discussions with his assistant Abbé Cordier, Finance Minister Alfred Pose and Marc Jacquet, Pose’s private secretary, in the d’Astier home at 2 Rue La Fayette, Algiers. |
| November 23 | General Eisenhower moves his headquarters from Gibraltar to the Hotel St. Georges in Algiers. |
| | President Roosevelt tells protesting Free French representatives André Philip and Adrien Tixier, “Of course I’m dealing with Darlan, since Darlan is giving me Algiers! Tomarrow I’d deal with Laval, if Laval were to offer me Paris!” |
| November 24 | Henri d’Astier and his fellow conspirators convince the presidents of the Algerian departmental general councils to write Darlan demanding his resignation, in accordance with the provisions of the Tréveneuc Law of 1875 which stipulates that in the event of an occupation of a part of the national territory, the general councils shall remain free to form a new government. |
| November 26 | General François d’Astier tells a London press conference that, “North Africa has been placed in the hands of the most hated and detested man in France.” |
| | Admiral Darlan receives a letter from the presidents of the Oran, Algiers and Constantine General Councils denouncing him for acting under the authority of Marshal Pétain. They declare that in so doing Darlan has shown that none of the conditions which would allow him to assume the powers of an independent and legal government have been fulfilled. The Admiral does not respond. |
| November 27 | Admiral de Laborde, having refused Darlan’s order to sail the Toulon fleet to North Africa, orders it scuttled in the face of a German advance on the port. The crews of 3 submarines, Glorieux, Casabianca and Marsouin, defy the order and sail to Algeria . |
| November 30 | Marc Jacquet, secretary to Finance Minister Alfred Pose, is sent to Morocco where he pays a visit to the Count de Paris hoping to convince him to succeed Admiral Darlan, not as the pretender to the throne of France but as a rallying point. The Count hesitates but agrees to send his adviser, Henri Billecocq, to meet with d’Astier and the other conspirators. |
| December 5 | Henri Billecocq returns to Morocco he delivers a report to his patron, the Count de Paris, that convinces the Count to accept the proposal made by Henri d’Astier and his fellow plotters. |
| | Henri d' Astier and Alfred Pose undertake to engage the widest possible gathering in their conspiracy, beginning with Colonel Van Hecke, the leader of the Free Corps and police commissioner Achiary. Meanwhile, Henri d' Astier has learned of his brother François’ presence at the side of General de Gaulle, and he decides that it will be necessary to involve him in the coup: if the Count de Paris becomes Head of State, de Gaulle can hold the post of chief of government, which will support French unity. Messages are exchanged with London through a British intermediaries. |
| December 7 | Admiral Darlan with the approval of the Allies proclaims himself Head of State in North Africa and Commander in Chief of French land, naval and air forces. Darlan appoints an Imperial Council consisting of Generals Noguès, Giraud, Châtel, Boisson and Bergeret to advise him. |
| December 9 | The first issue of the Stars and Stripes African edition is printed on the presses of L’Echo d’Alger. |
| December 10 | The Count de Paris accompanied by Abbé Cordier and Marc Jacquet leaves Morocco for Algiers. |
| December 15 | General Catroux wires General de Gaulle, "TOP SECRET. It was affirmed to me in Gibraltar that (Henri) d’Astier de la Vigerie ... would propose a scenario likely to allow the overthrow of the Admiral (Darlan) and to carry out its coordination.” |
| December 16 | The Count de Paris settles in at the residence of Henri d' Astier, 2 Rue La Fayette, Algiers. The Count’s presence in Algiers quickly becomes an open secret. Each day, he consults with numerous politicians and officers and distributes portfolios to his future government. |
| December 17 | Henri d' Astier and Alfred Pose decide to stage a coup. Initially, Jacques Tarbé de Saint-Hardouin is to give to Admiral Darlan a message from Alfred Pose requesting an appointment for himself and the presidents of the general councils for the following day. At that time, Pose and the general councilors would present the Admiral with a letter of resignation, point out to him that he represented an illegal position and that he is to be removed to avoid a confrontation. Darlan’s signature obtained, the delegation would apply the Tréveneuc Law to entrust a provisional and limited mission of national union to the Count de Paris. Darlan flatly refuses to grant an appointment forcing the conspirators to reexamine their plans. |
| December 18 | François d' Astier leaves London with orders to contact his brother Henri and the Count de Paris to assist the general councilors’ plan to form a government and take over from Admiral Darlan. De Gaulle agrees to assume responsability for this future government which would be placed under the temporary supervision of the Count de Paris. |
| | De Gaulle gives General d’Astier $40,000 intended for Henri d' Astier who has joined Rene Capitant and Louis Joxe on a committee formed to prepare for de Gaulle’s arrival in North Africa. At this moment, de Gaulle is unaware of that the plan envisaged by Henri and his fellow conspirators has failed owing to Darlan’s refusal to grant an appointment to Pose’s delegation. |
| December 19 | General François d’Astier lands in Algiers. He alerts General Eisenhower to his arrival then checks in at the Hotel Aletti. News of his presence in Algiers drops like a bombshell. Admiral Darlan rages against the Americans for allowing his old nemisis into Algiers. Darlan calls in Counsel General Robert Murphy who swears to know nothing and that the whole affair can only be a misunderstanding. General Bergeret, close collaborator to Darlan, suggests a dialogue with General d' Astier and orders Lieutenant Colonel Gibon-Guilhelm, his aide-de-camp, to find him and bring him to his office. Gibon-Guilhelm shows up at the Hotel Aletti and delivers Bergeret’s invitation to d' Astier as he starts his dinner. D'Astier quietly finishes his meal before answering in a particularly scornful tone, “I do not recognize Darlan in any capacity; Bergeret is only one small brigadier general. Me, I represent 36 million Frenchmen and I am the guest of the General Eisenhower, I will see neither Darlan nor Bergeret.” |
| | After dining, François d' Astier goes to the home of his brother Henri where the Count of Paris has waited, confined to bed, for two days, with an acute attack of malaria. The two discuss the fate of Darlan alone for two hours while Henri d' Astier and his wife Louise, Abbé Cordier, Alfred Pose and Marc Jacquet wait in the living room. |
| December 20 | François d' Astier meets with Paul Saurin, President of the Oran General Council, at the Hotel Aletti. Saurin demands to know what he intends to do with Darlan. D’Astier answers, “Darlan will disappear physically.” |
| | General d’Astier, pressured by Eisenhower, agrees to meet with Darlan in the late afternoon. The meeting in the Summer Palace is also attended by General Bergeret, General Giraud, Robert Murphy and Admiral Battet, Darlan’s aide-de-camp. At first, d’Astier speaks only to Giraud, completely ignoring the presence of Darlan who eventually explodes in anger. General d’Astier exits the scene after telling Darlan that his presence is the only obstacle to French unity and that he can do nothing better than remove himself as soon as possible. |
| December 21 | Admiral Darlan agrees to amnesty those who assisted the Allies and announces his intention to retire at the end of the war but insists that for the moment he is the only rallying point for French unity. |
| | François d' Astier revisits General Giraud and asks him to join General de Gaulle. Giraud agrees to cooperate if Darlan can be ousted. |
| | The Count de Paris meets with Henri and Louise d' Astier along with Abbé Cordier. He gives them the execution order, "Admiral Darlan must be eliminated, it is necessary to make him disappear by all means." |
| December 22 | François d' Astier departs Algiers at noon as rumor of an imminent attack on Admiral Darlan spreads. |
| | Marc Jacquet announces to the cadres of Alfred Pose’s bank, BNCI, that, "The day after tomorrow we will assassinate Darlan, and the Count de Paris will seize power. |
| | Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle spends the late afternoon at the home of Henri d'Astier. Abbé Cordier informs him of the Count de Paris’ order and charges him with killing Admiral Darlan. |
| December 23 | The American authorities inform General François d’Astier that Admiral Darlan has decided resign and leave North Africa and that they have consented. |
| December 24 | At 10 a.m., Abbé Cordier meets Bonnier de La Chapelle on small side street near the church of Saint Augustin and gives him a revolver belonging to Henri d' Astier, plans of the Summer Palace where Darlan has his offices, $2,000 supplied by François d' Astier along with an indentity card in the name of Morand which was forged by Inspector Schmitt who works for Police Commissioner Achiary. After killing Darlan, Bonnier de La Chapelle is expected to make his escape through an open window and then take the train bound for Morocco. |
| | After making his confession to Abbé Cordier, Bonnier, accompanied by Jean-Bernard d' Astier, leaves for the Summer Palace in the Peugeot lent to Henri d' Astier by Inspector Schmitt for the occassion. |
| | Around noon, leaves for lunch with the plotters at the Restaurant Paris and explains to them that Darlan has not come to the Summer Palace during the morning. |
| | Returning to the Summer Palace, Bonnier quietly awaits Darlan in the vestibule of his outer office. Shortly after 3 p.m., as Darlan is about to enter his office, Bonnier advances and fires two shots from the revolver striking the Admiral who falls to the ground mortally wounded. Bonnier does not have time to flee before several people seize him. |
| | Bonnier is taken, not to the police station run by Commissioner Achiary, but to the central police station of the Criminal Investigation Department, which is not a party to the plot. Although he claims to be called Morand, his true identity is soon discovered. Bonnier is the son of a well known Algiers journalist. |
| | Commissioner Garidacci witnesses the confession of Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, student, 20 years, living in Algiers, 56, Rue Michelet: "I affirm to have killed Admiral Darlan, High-Commissioner in French Africa, after having referred to Abbé Cordier about it in the form of confession. It is Mr. Cordier who gave me the plans of the offices of the High commissionership and the cabinet of the admiral, and it is by him that I could get the gun and the cartridges which were used by me to carry out the mission which was assigned to me and which was to make the Admiral disappear.... I know that MISTERS Cordier and d‘Astier met the Count de Paris recently, as well as other personalities." |
| December 25 | A relaxed Bonnier de La Chapelle receives a visit from his father whom he tells not to worry because he expects Henri de la Vigerie and the Count de Paris gain his release. |
| | General Noguès, the acting High Commissioner, fearing for his life, decides to hasten proceedings. Bonnier is transferred to the military tribunal during the afternoon. His trial takes place at the end of the day. After a short deliberation, he is condemned to death and his execution is fixed for the following day at dawn. |
| | During the night, Bonnier tells his guards, “I killed Admiral Darlan because he was a traitor, he sold France to Germany for his profit… I learned that a person (General François d' Astier de La Vigerie), coming on behalf of General de Gaulle, had asked to be received by the Admiral. General de Gaulle was ready to make his tender if a personality that I know (the Count of Paris) seized the power in place of Admiral Darlan. The Admiral refused to receive the envoy of General de Gaulle, showing his desire to keep power for himself. Certain personalities spoke before me about this fruitless step and said: "It is necessary that Darlan disappears." I said then: "Eh well, me, I will undertake to make him disappear.” …One said to me that, after the business, I would be taken, condemned to died and pardoned. However, I was judged too quickly, it would have taken two days to allow my friends to intervene.” |
| December 26 | The Imperial Council rejects the pleadings of the Count de Paris and names General Giraud to succeed Darlan investing him with full powers as Civil and Military Commander in Chief of French North Africa. |
| | General Giraud names General Bergeret to be his deputy. Giraud, convinced that Henri d’Astier’s police force is complicite in the murder of Darlan orders the arrest of Police Prefect Muscatelli and Commissioner Achiary. The Americans suggest he intern the leaders of the Gaullist movement in Algiers whom they suspect were involved in the assassination. |
| | Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle is executed at dawn. After the war, his grave marker and that of Admiral Darlan will be inscribed, “Mort Pour la France”. |
| December 31 | General Giraud orders the arrest of several dozen people who aided the American forces during the Operation Torch landings. The Civil and Military Commander in Chief claims that the arrests are aimed at preventing further assassinations in particular that of American Consul General Robert Murphy. |
| 1943 | January 9 | General Giraud brings Commander Voitriez, judge of the Casablanca military tribunal, to Algiers to investigate the Darlan Affair. |
| | Commander Paillole, chief of the secret service, advises Judge Voituriez to begin by questioning Commissioner Achiary who has agreed to testify in return for immunity. |
| | Commission Achiary testifies that, “the instigator was Henri d' Astier de la Vigerie and the agent of execution Abbé Cordier. Moreover they live together at 2 Rue La Fayette, Algiers… What is certain also, is that the character for whose profit these people conspired is the Count de Paris, pretender to the throne of France.” As regards François d’Astier, Achiary declares, “Achiary: "the conversations which I had with Henri d' Astier as well as with Abbé Cordier make it possible for me to say to you with certainty than the assassination was organized for the exclusive profit of the Count de Paris and that it was never a secret agreement with de Gaulle.” |
| January 10 | Four police officers armed with machine-guns make raid the apartment of Henri d' Astier and Abbé Cordier who are arrested and taken to prison. After they depart, Judge Voituriez conducts a search of the premisis which turns up fake newspapers with frontpages featuring photographs of the Count de Paris surrounded by General de Gaulle and the Giraud General and headlines proclaiming the Count’s accession to power. Voituriez also uncovers the composition of the Count’s government; Minister of State and assistant to the count, General de Gaulle; Minister of Interior Henri d' Astier de la Vigerie; War Minister, General Giraud; Minister for Finance, Alfred Pose and Justice Minister, Marc Jacquet. |
| | Judge Voituriez questions the other suspected plotters in the days that follow but when he asks General Giraud for authorization to question the Count de Paris, he is refused, “For reasons which touch on the organization of the government” Giraud tells him, “I do not want you to hear, even as a witness, the Count of Paris.” |
| January 16 | Judge Voituriez meets with Giraud and Bergeret to inform them of the impending arrest of Alfred Pose and Marc Jacquet whose complicity in the assassination is beyond any doubt. Bergeret tells him, "General Giraud wishes that you withdraw your summary procedure and that you blame neither Pose nor Jacquet. We know very well that they are guilty, but there are considerations higher than justice and we must take account of them.” General Giraud adds, “It is Mr. Pose and his bank who feed my government financially.” Giraud orders the judge to suspend the investigation. He declares that General de Gaulle had nothing to do with the assassination of Darlan, “the American special services examined your file with General Bergeret. They are now convinced that any collusion between the Count of Paris and de Gaulle is happenstance, that the goal of the conspirators was... the restoration of monarchy, and that the plot was organized in Algiers. |
| January 20 | Marcel Peyrouton, Vichy’s ambassador to Brazil, is appointed Governor General of Algeria at the request of President Roosevelt. Peyrouton, then Minister of the Interior, signed the 1940 decree stripping Algerian Jews of French citizenship. |
| January 25 | Si Mohamed Aït Ouali aka Mohamedi Saïd, future commandant of an FLN wilaya, who joined the Légion des Volontaires Français to fight beside the Germans, parachutes on to the heights of the Algerian plateau along with 2 Abwehr agents. He is arrest and sentenced to death but eventually pardoned by General de Gaulle. |
| February 10 | Ferhat Abbas publishes A Manifesto to the Algerian People in which he makes a definitive break with the assimalationists but without calling for complete independence. Abbas calls for an autonomous Algeria with its own constitution and a government allied with and supported by France. |
| February 25 | Algiers becomes the capital of Free France. The Committee of National Liberation which will become the Provisional Government of the French Republic is formed. |
| March 8 | General Giraud order copies of the Journal Officiel d’Afrique du Nord confiscated. The paper had continued to publish decrees issued by Marshal Pétain. |
| March 14 | General Giraud delivers a speech condemning Vichy and extolling the virtues of the Republic to an audience of refugees from Alsace and Lorraine. |
| March 15 | General Giraud writes to Free French representative General Georges Catroux, “I am ready to receive General de Gaulle in order to give a concrete form to this union. I ask you to invite him.” |
| March 17 | British diplomat Harold MacMillan meets with General de Gaulle’s representative Guy de Charbonnières in Algiers. MacMillan insists that the Gaullist submit to the leadership of Giraud now that, “the Civil and Military Commander in Chief has publicly allied himself with the principles Fighting France insists on.” Charbonnières expresses reservations. MacMillan threatens that, “If General de Gaulle refuses the hand held out him today, be assured that America and Great Britain will abandon him altogether...” |
| March 23 | New York Archbishop Francis Spellman, meets with General de Gaulle in London. Spellman delivers a warning from President Roosevelt; unless de Gaulle accepts General Giraud’s leadership; agrees to meet with Roosevelt, Churchill and Giraud in Casablanca and agrees to pardon the former Vichyites in North African administrations he runs the risk of officially being kept out of action during the liberation of France. |
| March 31 | Major General Joseph de Monsabert takes command of the 3rd Division d'Infanterie Algérienne at the end of the Tunisian campaign. |
| April 2 | Winston Churchill informs General de Gaulle that his presence in Algiers would have disagreeable consequences on public order and the military situation in North Africa absent an agreement with General Giraud. |
| April 6 | Anthony Eden and American Ambassador to Great Britain John Winant continue to press de Gaulle for a submission of the Free French movement to the authority of General Giraud. De Gaulle replies, “I should have done so with all my heart had Giraud been in command in North Africa on June 18, 1940, and had he continued the war by repudiating Pétain’s and Weygand’s injunctions. |
| April 15 | The Free French movement rejects General Giraud’s proposal to form a Council of Overseas Territories consisting of himself General de Gaulle, the residents general and governors general to co-ordinate the administration of the empire with the Allies. The Council would have had no political power and Giraud would have subordinated his military authority to the Allied command under the proposal. |
| | The African edition of the Stars and Stripes, printed by L’Echo d’Alger, expands from weekly to daily publication. |
| April 26 | Governor General Peyrouton informs General Catroux that in order to bring about unity in the ranks of the French he will resign his post as soon as General de Gaulle arrives in Algiers. |
| May 17 | General Giraud invites de Gaulle to come to Algiers to form a central French authority with him. |
| May 30 | General de Gaulle and representatives of the Free French movement arrive at Boufarik airfield for talks with General Giraud. Allied censors bar announcement of the arrivals but the resistance manages to arrange a show of support when de Gaulle lays a wreath at Algiers’ monument to the dead later in the afternoon. |
| | Winston Churchill arrives, secretly, in Algiers for meetings with Generals Eisenhower, Marshall, Montgomery, Brooke and Alexander at which a final agreement on an invasion of Sicily is reached. The Prime Minister is also kept abreast of the negotiations between Generals Giraud and de Gaulle by General Georges. |
| June 1 | Governor General Marcel Peyrouton tenders his resignation to General de Gaulle who accepts it. |
| June 3 | De Gaulle and Giraud agree to serve as co-presidents of the French Committee of Nation Liberation. Gaullist hold 3 to 2 majority on the committee. Generals Noguès and Boisson are relieved of command in Morocco and French West Africa. General Bergeret retires. Genral Georges Catroux is appointed Governor General of Algeria. |
| June 4 | General de Gaulle tells the French people that their government is now functioning in Algiers pending a return to Paris in a radio broadcast from Algiers. |
| June 6 | Winston Churchill emerges from seclusion to host a banquet for Generals Giraud and de Gaulle at his villa outside Algiers. |
| June 15 | Generals de Gaulle and Giraud approve the release of Messali Hadj, who had been imprisoned by a Vichyite tribunal. |
| June 19 | General de Gaulle refuses General Eisenhower’s demand that General Giraud be given full control over French military forces, communications, ports and airfields. Eisenhower threatens to cutoff Allied arms shipments to the French. |
| July | Emmanuel d' Astier travels to Algiers with Jean-Pierre Lévy, leader of the Franc Tireur resistance movement. D'Astier asks de Gaulle to release his brother Henri. De Gaulle refuses to do so. |
| August 26 | The United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union recognize the French Committee of National Liberation’s administrative authority over the French overseas territories. |
| September | François d' Astier meets with General de Gaulle in Algiers. De Gaulle grants his request for the release of his brother Henri but refuses to receive the younger d’Astier. |
| October 1 | General d’Astier asks de Gaulle why he will not meet with his brother Henri. De Gaulle replies, “1) "Henri did not work for me but for Giraud, the Count de Paris and the Americans. He should have taken my orders earlier. 2) He accepted a post in the Darlan-Giraud regime, it is true in the intention to eliminate Darlan, but it is a Florentin process.” François responds with a staunch defense of his brother’s record of service in the resistance and cooperation with the Gaullists but the General remains unmoved. |
| October 6 | General Chambe tells General d’Astier that General Giraud intends to mark the anniversary of the landings by decorating four or five for the principal craftsmen of Resistance in North Africa, including his brother Henri. |
| October 9 | General d’Astier informs de Gaulle of Giraud’s intentions as regards his brother Henri, “It would be prickly to see Giraud officially honoring the services of Henri. For my part, I would be mortified by it.” |
| October | Albert Camus joins the Combat resistance organization and assumes editorship of its clandestine newspaper of the same name. |
| November 8 | Henri d' Astier de la Vigerie is made a Companion of the Liberation by General de Gaulle. |
| November 9 | The Committee of National Liberation authorizes General de Gaulle to remove General Giraud from the government following a series of incidents involving his failure to report on activities associated with the signing of the Italian armistice and plans for the liberation of Corsica. |
| December 12 | General de Gaulle announces the adoption of General Catroux’s proposal to permit the entry of approximately 10,000 Moslems into the first electoral college, previously reserved to French citizens; to admit all other Moslems into the second electoral college and to grant parity to the two bodies in electing representatives to the National Assembly, during a speech at Constantine. |
| December | A French Expeditionary Corps under General Juin lands in Italy. |
| | The 3rd Division d'Infanterie Algérienne relieves the U.S. 43rd Infantry before Abruzzi. |
| 1944 | January | The 3rd Division d'Infanterie Algérienne scores its first battlefield successes at Monna Casale, Acquafondata and Belvédère in Italy. |
| January 12 | Winston Churchill meets with General de Gaulle in Marrakech. The Prime Minister asks de Gaulle to halt the proceedings against several Vichyites including the former Governor General of Algeria Marcel Peyrouton, then on trial for collaboration. De Gaulle refuses. |
| January 30 | General de Gaulle opens the Brazzaville Conference with a declaration that, “in French Africa, as in all the other territories where men live under our flag, there will be no progress which is a progress, if men, on their native land, do not benefit from it morally and materially, if they cannot rise little by little up to the level where they will be able to take part in the management of their own affairs. It is the duty of France to make sure that it is thus." |
| March 7 | An ordinance grants French citizenship to about 60,000 Moslems. |
| March 14 | Ferhat Abbas founds les Amis du Manifeste des Libertés (Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty - AML) at Sétif. The AML makes common cause with Messali Hadj’s PPA and the Oulémas. |
| March 20 | Pierre Pucheu, former Vichy Minister of the Interior, is executed by a firing squad in the courtyard of Hussein Dey prison near Algiers. Pucheu, who mercilessly persecuted the Resistance, came to North Africa under a promise of safe conduct from General Giraud shortly after he was fired by Pierre Laval at the time of the Allied landings. |
| April 8 | General Giraud is relieved of military command. General de Gaulle remains the head of the Provisional Government. |
| April 24 | The Institute of Physical Education and Sports is established at the University of Algiers. |
| April | Henri d’Astier creates the Commandos de France, a paratroop unit recruited from escaped French POWs. |
| May 12 | General de Monsabert’s 3rd Division d'Infanterie Algérienne captures Castelforte on the Garigliano opening the way for the Allied entry into Rome. |
| May 30 | Princess Charlotte of Monaco, a native of Constantine, renounces her right of succession in favor of her son Prince Rainier III. |
| June 4 | General de Gaulle leaves Algiers for London at the invitation of Prime Minister Churchill who then informs him of the landings about to be made in Normandy. |
| July 14 | Sergeant Ahmed Ben Bella is awarded the Médaille Militaire. Alain Mimoun, future Olympic marathon champion, is awarded the Croix de Guerre. |
| August 16 | Seven divisions of French Army Group B including the 3rd Algerian Infantry under the command of General de Monsabert land near St. Tropez. North Africans (Moslem and European) comprise 220,000 of the 250,000 French troops. |
| August 17 | Henri d’Astier lands near Saint Tropez at the head of a 45 man team assigned to disrupt German defenses from behind the lines. |
| August 20 | The 3rd Algerian Infantry Division reaches Mont Faron on the outskirts of Toulon where General de Lattre orders de Monsabert’s forces to Ange Pass in preparation for an assault on Marseilles. |
| August 23 | The 3rd Algerian Infantry Division enters Marseilles and reaches the old port by evening. |
| August 28 | General Giraud is seriously injured in an attack by a Senegalese tirailleur. The assailant is sentenced to death and executed in January 1945 despite the intervention of Giraud and de Gaulle in favor of commutation. |
| | The German garrison surrenders Marseilles to General de Monsabert. |
| August 31 | The Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) is transferred from Algiers to Paris. |
| September 25 | General Moll, commander of the Algerian French Forces of the Interior declares, “The morale of Algerian troops is bad. These soldiers suffer from the excessive silence in regards to them and their sacrifices, whereas the praises of the French Forces of the Interior multiply. From the moment when almost all the national territory was liberated, they were astonished by the small number of metropolitan Frenchmen who came to reinforce them. Nationalism rises. The Maghrébin soldiers see themselves as poorly rewarded by France. Many are indignant that French citizenship is not granted to the Moslem combatants." |
