Under these constant pressures Bourguiba was to remain unswervingly constant to his two principal ideals (though they were often thrown into mutual conflict); to gain independence for Algeria, while retaining a generally pro-French and pro-Western stance. Despite being imprisoned by the French during the Tunisian struggle for independence, he seldom wavered in his francophilia, and his repeated services as a bridge between the Arabs and the Western world deserve an even greater place in history than they have achieved heretofore. Nevertheless, without Bourguiba in Tunisia, the F.L.N. would probably have been crushed—militarily—before the fall of the Fourth Republic. Though Morocco and its king, Mohammed V, were also of great importance throughout to the F.L.N. war effort, for both political and geographical reasons Bourguiba always took pride of place. To the Algerians, Bourguiba fulfilled five functions: he provided

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 769