ENTERING its sixth year, the Algerian war had already lasted longer than the First World War and longer than American participation in the Second. Now, as the new year of 1960 approached, it was about to bring with it events that would seal the fate of Algérie française. All that followed in the final two years of the struggle would be little more than a fore-ordained postscript. And the first notes of the tocsin would be sounded, not by the Muslims or the F.L.N., but by the pieds noirs themselves.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1065