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Today marks the 100th anniversary of the #Kilcmichael Ambush. I’ve long been struck by the parallels between it and a key event in Algerian War, the Palestro Ambush of May 18 1956. This thread traces contrasts and commonalities between them. 
Both attacks left 17 dead among the forces of the colonial powers, though in Palestro 2 French soldiers were never recovered and 1 was killed during a rescue operation. 3 IRA men died while Algerian losses are estimated in low single digits.
Both ambushes relied on local knowledge of the landscape to encircle the enemy. The troops of both the ALN and the IRA took up positions the night before the attack and embedded themselves in the terrain, ready to pounce.
Both ambushes were led by men who had once served in the forces that were the target of the attacks. Tom Barry was a veteran of the British Army in WWI while Ali Khodja had deserted from French Army only months before masterminding the attack.
The success of both attacks was more symbolic than military. Crown forces in Ireland and the French Army outnumbered and were better equipped than their enemies but the ambushes showed their inability to control the territory.
The press in France and Britain held up the attacks as examples of the savagery of their enemies, trying to mobilise old colonial troops to delegitimise their enemies and bolster faltering support in colonial metropoles for their wars.
Both events have been the focus of intense controversy. Allegations of the mutilation of bodies and breaches in the rules of combat have been central to the way the ambushes have been written about and understood.
They marked an intensification of violence in both contexts. However, worth noting here that the scale and brutality of violence in Algeria was far more extreme. When French Army recovered the soldiers’ bodies, they summarily executed 44 locals.
The discriminatory understandings of racial difference that underpinned British and French Empires meant that imperial armies could always act with more impunity in colonial contexts outside of Europe, whether this was India or Algeria.
Hope this was interesting. For those who read French, I recommend Raphaelle Branche’s book on Palestro, tracing the ambush’s connections to older forms of colonial violence. Would love to see someone write a similar history of Kilmichael. https://editionsladecouverte.fr/catalogue/index-L__embuscade_de_Palestro-9782707198686.html
Might be of interest @jamesrmcd @ArthurAsseraf @RahalMal @VinceNatalya @dr_tgpeterson @clubatomique @DavidFitz84
