Battle of Bab El Oued

Significance

The Battle of Bab El Oued was an armed confrontation between the French Army and the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a clandestine group opposed to Algerian independence, occurring in the final weeks of the Algerian War. Taking place in Bab El Oued, a working-class European quarter of Algiers, the battle represented the French state's direct military suppression of the most significant armed settler resistance to the Évian peace process. That French Army forces under Charles Ailleret moved against OAS elements led by Raoul Salan in a densely populated urban quarter illustrated the degree to which the conflict had fractured along lines of loyalty within French Algeria itself, setting the confrontation apart from the broader anti-FLN campaign that had defined the war's earlier years.

Commanders (2)