The key role fell upon the 4th Regiment of Tirailleurs, one of the last regular units still containing a majority of “loyal” Algerian troops, which had just arrived — exhausted and tense — from operations in the bled. A few days previously their commanding officer, Colonel Goubard, had reported to the Commander-in-Chief, General Ailleret, that his Tirailleurs — averaging twenty years of age and with only eighteen months’ training — had proved themselves in the djebel but were in no way conditioned or trained for police activities in the city. Ailleret promised that the Tirailleurs would not be used in Algiers; but somehow, incredibly, the order was never passed down. Thus, at a time when nerves were at breaking-point in Algiers, these totally unsuited Algerian troops found themselves holding a road block in the centre of Algiers, across the Rue d’Isly by the Grande Poste, close to where Ortiz had erected his barricades in January 1960.

QUESTION: Was the failed order a deliberate omission or bureaucratic incompetence? This becomes pivotal given what happened at the Rue d'Isly roadblock.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1603