A brutal attack by militants “mercilessly slaughtering” civilians in their homes occurred simultaneously with attacks against military targets of an occupying power. These attacks resulted in an overwhelming military retaliation that killed so many people, one soldier wrote, “they had to be buried with bulldozers.”
While this sounds like coverage of October 7 and the current Gaza War, these are descriptions of the 1955 “Philippeville massacre” in Algeria. That event marked a major turning point in the Algerian War of Independence against 125 years of French occupation. It led to seven more years of brutality that killed 300,000 to one million Algerians and threatened a civil war in France. It also sowed seeds for future violence in Algeria and around the world.
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