Decolonization: Europe’s Last Wars?History 337 / February 13, 2012

Indonesian independence from the Netherlands, 1949(here: Ahmed Sukarno)

French Indochina(divides up into

Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969)

Here: with Viet Minh forces,1946

French Republic forces parachute into Dien Bien Phu

The besieged French troops

Defeated French (and Foreign Legion) soldiers, May 1954

Negotiations in Geneva: Pierre Mendès-Francewith Chinese Prime Minister Zhou En-Lai

The Geneva Accords(July 1954) prescribe a

temporarily divided Vietnam

Algeria in French eyes:three coastal departments of France

FLN fighters in Algeria, 1957

Bombs discovered in the home of an FLN

supporter

Ahmed Ben Bella (1918 - ) with Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser

General Jacques Massu (1908-2002)

An iconic movie

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)

Algiers, 1958: A popular uprising demandsCharles de Gaulle’s return to power

France’s new constitution:

The Fifth Republic

De Gaulle as President (December 1958)

British soldiers during the “Malay Emergency”

(1948-1960)

British suppression of the “Mau-Mau” rebellion in Kenya

President Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal

The plotters: Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet

The Franco-British-Israeli intervention (Oct. 1956)

Macmillan and Eisenhower:The US-UK “Special

Relationship”

The first British colony to win independence:

Gold Coast (now Ghana)

Working with the French empire:

Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast

(1905-1993)

Rejecting the French empire:

Guinea’s Sékou Toure declares

independence, October 1958

“Winds of change”: Macmillan in Cape Town, February 1960