Ruthlessly, but with caution, de Gaulle embarked on a major purge of the "activists" in the army of Algiers. The loyal Gaullist General Ely was brought back as Chief of the General Staff and given the task of scattering the ringleaders of May by posting them, in twos and threes, to units in France or Germany. By the following March only two of those officers were still left in Algeria, while some 1,500 others had either been transferred, or simply retired.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 948