The peak of horror was reached at Ain-Abid, twenty-four miles east of Constantine, and at El-Halia, a small pyrite mining centre close to Philippeville. El-Halia housed 130 Europeans and some 2,000 Muslims who for years had coexisted amicably enough together. Some were on friendly terms with each others’ families, while in the mine labour relations had been exceptionally good, with a rare degree of equality between the two races. It appears that the whole Muslim community had been aware of what was brewing at least twenty-four hours previously, and a number of families left the village. On the morning of the 20th some fifty Muslim workers absented themselves from the mine — but not an inkling of this was passed on to any of the Europeans.

QUESTION: Why did no Muslim warn the Europeans despite friendly relations? What drove the community to conceal the plot?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 375