It is hard to convey the public impact of France's war to maintain her colonial grip on Algeria; yet in the late 1950s this ugly conflict dominated Europe's media to almost the same extent as would Vietnam ten years later. It brought France to the very verge of military coup d'etat; it destroyed thousands of careers; bitterly divided the French military and political classes for a generation; and sent hundreds of thousands of European settler families into often ruinous exile. This title details the history, organisation, equipment and uniforms of the forces involved.

Martin Windrow is series editor at Osprey and an authority on the post-war French Army, particularly the Foreign Legion. He is the author of the critically acclaimed The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam (2004).