Ahmed Ben Bella (born 1918) was one of the "historic chiefs" of the Algerian war of independence and the first president of the Algerian Republic.

Ahmed Ben Bella was born into a modest peasant family on December 25, 1918, at Marnia, a small town near the Algerian-Moroccan frontier. In 1937, a few years after completing primary school, he was drafted into the French army. He remained in Marseilles until 1940, reaching the rank of sergeant, and then returned to Algeria for three years to work on his family's farm. He had considered staying in France, however, to play professional soccer.

In 1943 he returned to military duty and won both the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire for his wartime service in Italy. Back in Algeria by 1946, Ben Bella had become discouraged by the failure of the French to liberalize the colonial regime and joined the nationalist party, the Movement for the Triumph...