Battle of Douar Souadek

Last updated
Battle of Douar Sadek
Part of the Algerian war
Date18 January 1955
Location
Condé-Smendou, French Algeria
Result

French victory

Belligerents
Flag of France.svg  France Variant flag of the GPRA (1958-1962).svg Front de Libération Nationale
Commanders and leaders
Paul Ducournau  [ fr ]
Lt. Madherbe
Col. Terrasson
Cpt. Billand		 Mourad Didouche   Skull and Crossbones.svg [1]
Units involved

National Gendarmerie

National Police

Airborne units

Armée de Libération Nationale

Strength
Initial:
20 gendarmes
Relief:
3 gendarme platoons
(about 90 men)
2 CRS Companies
(280 men)
Heavy weaponry
Total:
390 men
Heavy weaponry		 10 Fellaghas
Casualties and losses
1 dead
2 wounded
(initial fighting)
Unknown total casualties		 7 dead
2 captured
1 wounded

The Battle of Douar Souadek, or Battle of Boukerker, was a military engagement between the French Army, and the ALN.

Contents

Background

In the early morning hours of 1 November 1954, FLN maquisards (guerrillas) attacked military and civilian targets throughout Algeria in what became known as the Toussaint Rouge (Red All-Saints' Day). [2] The country was divided into several Zones, later Wilayas, and each had a leader. The leader of Zone II, was Mourad Didouche, [3] [4] who was one of the six founders of the FLN. [5] He regularly used hit and run tactics to weaken local French elements, and he was also well known to visit individual maquis, to inspect, or train them.

Battle

On 18 January 1955, Mourad Didouche, was at the head of a group of nine Fellaghas, in a local maquis called Douar Souadek located 12 km from the town of Condé-Smendou. He was most likely training them. They were armed with 6 rifles, and 6 pistols. According to the details reported by the La Dépêche de Constantine newspaper, about twenty French gendarmes led by Lieutenant Malherbe had taken the direction of Douar Souadek in the dawn of 18 January 1955. On the spot, near the Boukerker wadi, they were ambushed by the aforementioned maquis.

According to La Dépêche de Constantine, the battle began around 8:30 am. After only a few shots fired, a French gendarme was killed, and two others wounded, while the Algerians suffered no casualties. Seeing the scale of the engagement, Lieutenant Malherbe asked for reinforcements. At the end of the morning, three gendarmerie platoons arrived from Constantine, Azzaba and El Harrouch, followed by two CRS companies, and reportedly a paratrooper one under the command of Paul Ducournau. [6]

Despite their initial successes, the ten Fellaghas got cornered by the numerically superior, and far better armed French units. Despite this, they resisted until about 5:15 pm. By the end of the battle 7 fellaghas died, two were wounded, and one was able to escape, albeit wounded. [7] One of the killed was Mourad Didouche himself. [8] [9] [10]

Identification of bodies

Ever since the beginning of the Organisation spéciale , all officers and leaders had Pseudonyms, as to avoid identification. As such, the French army never realized that one of the killed resistance fighters was Mourad, [11] as they thought that it was instead somebody called Abdelkader.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algerian War</span> 1954–1962 war of Algerian independence from France

The Algerian War was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali La Pointe</span> Algerian guerrilla leader (1930–1957)

Ali Ammar, better known by his nickname Ali la Pointe, was an Algerian revolutionary fighter and guerrilla leader of the National Liberation Front who fought for Algerian independence against the French colonial regime, during the Battle of Algiers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saadi Yacef</span> Algerian independence fighter

Yacef Saâdi was an Algerian independence fighter, serving as a leader of the National Liberation Front during his country's war of independence. He was a Senator in Algeria's Council of the Nation until his death.

Latifa Ben Mansour is an Algerian writer, psychoanalyst, and linguist. Her work deals with issues such as the role of women in Algerian society, Islamic extremism, storytelling, trauma, and memory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Algiers (1956–1957)</span> Urban guerilla campaign in the Algerian War

The Battle of Algiers was a campaign fought during the Algerian War. It consisted of urban guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks carried out by the National Liberation Front (FLN) against the French authorities in Algiers, and by the French authorities, army, and French terrorist organizations against the FLN. Both sides targeted civilians throughout the battle. The conflict began with attacks by the FLN against the French forces and Pieds-Noirs followed by a terrorist attack on Algerian civilians in Algiers by a group of settlers, part of the terrorist group "La Main Rouge", aided by the police. Reprisals followed and the violence escalated, leading the French Governor-General to deploy the French Army in Algiers to suppress the FLN. Civilian authorities gave full powers to General Jacques Massu who, operating outside legal frameworks between January and September 1957, eliminated the FLN from Algiers. The use of torture, forced disappearances and illegal executions by the French later caused controversy in France.

Erwan Bergot was a French Army officer and author; he served in the French Army during the First Indochina War and Algerian War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arris, Batna</span> Place in Batna, Algeria

Arris is a commune in the Batna wilaya in eastern Algeria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Laban</span>

Maurice Laban, a pied-noir and Spanish civil war veteran turned passionate Algerian nationalist. He was also a founding member of the Algerian Communist Party (PCA).

The Battle of Philippeville, also known as the Philippeville massacre or the August Offensive, was a series of raids launched on 20 August 1955 on various cities and towns of the Constantine region by FLN insurgents and armed mobs during the Algerian War between France and the Algerian rebels. The raids, which mostly took the form of ethnic riots, resulted in the massacre of several dozens of European settlers, known as pieds-Noirs. The massacres were then followed by reprisals by the French army and pied-noir vigilantes, which resulted in the death of several thousand Muslim Algerians. The events of late August 1955 in the Constantinois region are considered to be a major turning point of the Algerian War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Bab El Oued</span> Battle

The Battle of Bab el Oued was a violent confrontation which occurred during the latter stages of the Algerian War (1954–1962) between the French Army and the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) which opposed Algerian independence. It took place in Bab El Oued, then a working-class European quarter of Algiers, from 23 March to 6 April 1962.

The First Battle of El Djorf took place on 22 September 1955, during the Algerian War, between the National Liberation Army and the French Army.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mourad Didouche</span> Algerian revolutionary

Mourad Didouche was an Algerian revolutionary, and a political and military figure of the Algerian War of Independence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Youcef Zighoud</span>

Youcef Zighoud, also known as Colonel Si Ahmed, was an Algerian FLN fighter during the Algerian War of Independence. On August 20, 1955, he planned an attack against the French in Philippeville and its surroundings, which is commonly referred to as the Battle of Philippeville. The attack led to a harsh crackdown and repression by the French government. While numbers are disputed, the conflict resulted in between 1,239 and 12,000 deaths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palestro ambush</span>

The Palestro ambush, or Djerrah ambush, took place on 18 May 1956, during the Algerian War, near the village of Djerrah in the region of Palestro in Kabylie. A section of about forty men from the National Liberation Army (ALN) under the command of Lieutenant Ali Khodja ambushed a unit of 21 men from the 9th Colonial Infantry Regiment of the French Army commanded by Second Lieutenant Hervé Artur.

Operation Véronique was an unsuccessful military operation undertaken by the French Army during the Algerian War in the hope of eradicating the National Liberation Front (FLN).

Mohamed Aïchaoui was an Algerian journalist and militant in the nationalist movement against French Algeria. Aïchaoui wrote the Declaration of 1 November 1954, the National Liberation Front's first appeal to the Algerian people at the start of the Algerian War. After earlier imprisonment and torture, he died in a 1959 clash with the French army.

The Declaration of 1 November 1954 is the first independentist appeal addressed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) to the Algerian people, marking the start of the Algerian Revolution and the armed action of the National Liberation Army (ALN).

Ahmed Mahsas was an Algerian militant in the nationalist movement against French Algeria.

Hocine Mezali is an Algerian journalist and writer. He had been the head of intelligence during the Battle of Algiers (1956–1957).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benaouda Benzerdjeb</span> Algerian physician (1921–1956)

Benaouda Benzerdjeb was an Algerian doctor, born on February 9, 1921, in Tlemcen and died on January 16, 1956, in the village of Ouled Halima, near Sebdou, 36 km from Tlemcen. He was the first medical martyr to die during the Algerian war.

References

  1. ↑ admin (2015-07-13). "Cela s'est passé un 13 juillet 1927, naissance de Didouche Mourad". Babzman (in French). Retrieved 2020-12-27.
  2. ↑ Solidarity, Permanent Organization for Afro-Asian Peoples' (1962). The Algerian Revolution: (1st November 1954-31 December 1961). Organisation for Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity.
  3. ↑ Tarvin, William. The Mysterious Plus. William L Tarvin.
  4. ↑ Vince, Natalya (2020-11-07). The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution. Springer Nature. ISBN   978-3-030-54264-1.
  5. ↑ Adamson, Kay (1998-01-01). Algeria: A Study in Competing Ideologies. A&C Black. ISBN   978-0-304-70012-7.
  6. ↑ Horne, Alistair (2012-08-09). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. Pan Macmillan. ISBN   978-1-4472-3343-5.
  7. ↑ "18 janvier 1955 - bataille du douar Souadek à Constantine : Défendre la mémoire de Didouche Mourad | El Watan". www.elwatan.com. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
  8. ↑ Simon, Georges (1988). 1954-1962, l'autre guerre d'Algérie: car assuré d'une vie éternelle (in French). Pensée universelle. ISBN   978-2-214-07572-2.
  9. ↑ "Cela s'est passé un 18 janvier 1955: Mort de Didouche Mourad à la bataille du douar Souadek - Algerie360". www.algerie360.com (in French). 2017-01-18. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
  10. ↑ "Constantine : Commémoration du 65 ème Anniversaire du décès du Chahid Didouche Mourad | Radio Algérienne". www.radioalgerie.dz (in French). Retrieved 2020-12-27.
  11. ↑ Image, Mémoire, Histoire.: Les représentations iconographiques en Algérie et au Maghreb (in French). Crasc. 2006-12-01. ISBN   978-9961-813-31-7.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.