Through 1956 and into 1957 the overall military picture of the war did not improve for the French. It may have looked rosier in some areas (notably General Beaufre's command), but it worsened in others; while all the time those blotches on the "smallpox chart" were spreading. With the arrival of Mollet's reservists and national servicemen numbers on the ground increased, and so did the efficiency of the paras; but at the same time the numbers of the F.L.N., and their expertise and equipment, were also on the upward path.

QUESTION: This escalatory spiral in the Algerian War is worth tracing—what drove the parallel growth in capability on both sides?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 512