Page "Algerian War" Paragraph 15

Both native and European Algerians took part in World War I, fighting for France.

Natives as tirailleurs ( such regiments were created as early as 1842 ) and spahis ; and French settlers as Zouaves or Chasseurs d ' Afrique.

With Wilson's 1918 proclamation of the Fourteen Points, whose fifth point proclaimed: " A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined ", some Algerian intellectuals — dubbed oulémas began to nurture the desire for independence or, at least, autonomy and self-rule.