1841-1842.
With the year 1841 commenced the real and decisive struggle. The French,
with too exclusive reliance on their superiority in discipline and
resources, calculated that it would terminate in a few months. Owing to
the unimagined means of resistance evoked and wielded by the great chief
who defied them, it was destined yet to last, with alternate
vicissitudes of success, for six years.
On the 22nd of February, 1841, General Bugeaud assumed the functions of
Governor-General of Algeria. Abdel Kader regarded the appointment as a
hopeful presage. He would have little difficulty, he conceived, in
coming to a good understanding with one who had already sanctioned and
confirmed his claims to regal power. One of his most famous
predecessors, Ouchba-ibn-Naifé, lieutenant of the Caliph Mouaiah,
towards the close of the seventh century, after having led his
victorious Arabs from Alexandria to Morocco, had signed a treaty with
the Christian Emperor of Constantinople, by which he was to be paramount
ruler in the interior, while the latter was to be content with holding
the towns along the coast.
Such was the arrangement which Abdel Kader had always fondly hoped to
see established between himself and the French Government. He thought it
not impossible that the new Governor-General might be induced to support
and promote such a solution of existing difficulties. Bugeaud’s first
proclamation quickly undeceived him. The General therein declared that
his opinions on Algerian affairs were completely changed. So far from
the French occupation being limited, it was to be extended. Every rival
power was to be crushed.
In truth, the French Government had at length taken the measure of their
formidable adversary, and had placed 85,000 men at Bugeaud’s disposal.
With such an imposing force it was anticipated that Abdel Kader would
soon be beaten and driven out of the field.
But the great difficulty was not so much to defeat Abdel Kader as to
overtake him. The French were stronger; but he was lighter. The former
moved along beaten routes in long columns, encumbered with artillery,
ambulances, and baggage. The latter seeing his enemy’s point of attack,
evaded him for the moment, and then fell on him when at fault, entangled
in ravines and lost amidst precipices. With the Romans, the French might
truly say, “Nostros asperitas et insolentiæ loci retinebant.”
Bugeaud altered the tactics of his predecessors. Movable columns winding
in various directions obliged Abdel Kader to disseminate his forces, and
kept him dubious and uncertain. Heavy baggage and heavy ordnance were
abandoned. Recesses hitherto unapproachable, became accessible. Even the
commissariat was dispensed with.
The Arabs had one immense advantage over the French. Wherever they went
they found provisions. The _silos_ scattered over the land afforded them
a never-failing resource. The French had to carry their provisions with
them. The difference was serious and important. Lamoricière solved the
problem. “The Arabs carry no provisions,” said that General, “why should
we?” And he forthwith took the field for a month.
His men carried a few portable hand-mills. On reaching a given tract of
country, they spread themselves out in skirmishing order, sometimes a
league in extent. They probed the ground before them, as they advanced,
with their swords and bayonets. The stones concealing the underground
granaries were struck. They had been but loosely and scantily covered
with earth. The _silos_ were discovered. Razzias procured sheep. The
hand-mills converted corn into flour; and thus the French troops found
themselves provisioned on the very spot where they stood.
Bugeaud’s military operations were based on the double principle of
conservation and aggression. The main objects of his tactics consisted
in re-victualling his garrisons, which barely held their own amidst the
ever-active foes surrounding them on every side; in keeping in
subjection the Arab tribes who had already surrendered to his arms, by
giving them an efficient organisation under French officers,—in
overawing others by inexorable razzias and ruthless burning of their
crops; and, lastly, in striking, without pause or cessation, at Abdel
Kader’s power in all its vital parts, by occupying his strong positions,
destroying his arsenals, rasing his fortresses, with the hope of forcing
him back, by continual pressure, into the wilds of the Sahara.
The campaign of 1841 opened with a second re-victualling of Medea and
Miliana. The losses of the French, before they effected that object,
were immense. Abdel Kader disputed every inch of the ground. Bugeaud had
gone to the province of Oran. From Mostaganem he led in person an
expedition against Tekedemt. On reaching it, May 25th, he found it
deserted and partly in flames. Boghar, Saida, and Taza, were
successively destroyed.
Abdel Kader, faithful to his lately-adopted system, had determined not
to waste his forces in vain attempts to defend his fortresses. He
abandoned them all. His regular army was more usefully and successfully
employed in harassing the French on their lines of march, or in keeping
wavering tribes to their allegiance. In the new style of warfare which
he was now called upon to confront, walled towns were an encumbrance to
him—impediments, in fact, of which he felt glad to be relieved.
The following characteristic letter, addressed by him about this time to
General Bugeaud, admirably portrays the buoyancy of spirit which
animated him at a period when everything seemed to indicate his hopeless
and irretrievable ruin:—
“What is that craving thus urging France, which calls itself a strong
and peaceful nation, to come and make war against us? Has she not
sufficient territory? What harm can all she has taken do us, compared
with what still remains to us? She will advance, we will retire; but
she, in her turn, will be obliged to retire; and then we shall return.
“And you, the Governor-General, what injury can you do us? In battle you
lose as many men as we do. Your army is yearly decimated by disease.
What compensation do you think you can offer your king and your country
for your enormous losses in men and money? A tract of ground, and the
stones of Mascara!
“You burn, you ravage our crops, you pillage our _silos_. But what
signifies to us the loss of the plain of Eghrees, of which you have not
ravaged even a twentieth part, when we possess so many others? The
ground you take from us is but as a drop of water taken from the sea. We
will fight you just when we think proper; and you know we are not
cowards.
“As to our opposing the forces you drag after you, it would be folly.
But we will harass them; we will wear them out; we will cut them up in
detail; the climate will do the rest. Does the wave cease to rise and
swell when a bird skims it? That is the image of your passage in
Africa.”
The French had, indeed, already reason to shrink from the task before
them. What with the losses entailed upon them by marches and counter-
marches, by incessant fighting, by blasting heats, their army had nearly
vanished away. Bugeaud, at the close of the year 1841, had to report,
that of 60,000 men, he had only 4,000 fit for duty.
The French Government again sought relief in projects of peace. If the
Emir would raise the blockade of the French garrisons, and nominally lay
down his arms (it being understood, at the same time, that 30,000 stand
should be secretly paid for), all his former rights would be confirmed,
it said, all the territory taken from him restored. Abdel Kader laughed
at the proposition. “Let the French keep the towns,” he replied. “Will
the towns give them food? So long as I hold the country, and can attack
and intercept their convoys, my position will still be superior to
theirs.”
The very fact, that a proposal for peace had been first broached by the
French themselves, confirmed Abdel Kader in his resolution to try the
extremities of war. He had already twice reduced them to terms, before
his fortresses and arsenals existed. The elements he then wielded still
remained to him, even after the loss of these strongholds, and, in
truth, were even more effective than before. The Arab tribes had been
organised; they moved by a common impulse; they expanded and contracted
by word of command; when least dreaded, they attacked; when pursued,
they disappeared. Such was henceforth to be the formidable but ever
fluctuating principle of Abdel Kader’s operations.
To break the links of this well-compacted chain, and destroy the
influence which held it together, by establishing permanent centres of
action in the very heart of the Arab confederation, and by rapidly
consecutive expeditions radiating from these centres, to give his troops
the ubiquity of the Arabs, became Bugeaud’s main object.
It was determined that the province of Oran, as the chief seat of Abdel
Kader’s power, should henceforward be regarded as the principal scene of
operations. Lamoricière occupied Mascara; Bedeau held Tlemsen;
Changarnier watched the western frontier of the plain of Algiers;
D’Aumale menaced Tittery. All these were men of promise, able, bold,
enterprising, successful; but destined, at a later period, to experience
the fickleness of fortune.
Three columns moving from Oran and Mostaganem were despatched to act
upon the tribes occupying the vast extent of territory between the sea
and the Atlas, as well as those extending towards the Sahara. The first,
headed by Bugeaud in person, advanced along the valley of the Cheliff,
and then made its junction with the second column under Changarnier,
which had started from Blidah. The third column, commanded by
Lamoricière, aimed at pushing Abdel Kader back to the south, with the
view of isolating him from the tribes attacked by Bugeaud and
Changarnier.
Now commenced those wonderful episodes, thrilling in their effect,
sublime in their grandeur, as marvels of daring and genius, by which
Abdel Kader stamped this glorious struggle in which he was engaged with
the impress of his own extraordinary individuality.
Lamoricière, zealously acting up to the instructions given him, to
pursue and overtake the Sultan, was always fancying himself on the
traces of his object. Suddenly he heard that Abdel Kader was before
Mascara. When he had contrived to arrive by forced marches at that
place, he was told that Abdel Kader had passed by the rear of his
column, and was making a razzia on the Borgia tribes.
Again came the pursuit, and again Abdel Kader, by a bold and rapid
manœuvre, leaving his bewildered foes behind him, dashed across the
Cheliff, placed himself between Bugeaud and the sea, recovered his
ascendancy over the tribes who had deserted him in that direction, made
another sweeping razzia to the south of Miliana, and then, rushing back
to the Sahara, showed himself there in full force, just as the French
had returned, in despair of finding him, to their cantonments.
By ever-recurring evolutions of this nature, slipping between the
enemy’s columns, flitting in their front, hovering on their flank,
falling on their rear, never at fault, never discouraged, sometimes in
the mountains, sometimes in the plains, disconcerting and rendering
abortive the most scientific military combinations, Abdel Kader amply
compensated for the disparity of his means, and counterbalanced the
manifold disadvantages under which he laboured.
Leaving to his Khalifas in Oran the duty of carrying on the desultory
kind of warfare which he had so rigidly prescribed, Abdel Kader now
repaired to the Traara Mountains on the frontiers of Morocco. The
military skill and diplomatic aptitude of Bedeau had imposed obedience
on many of the frontier tribes. Abdel Kader saw his communications with
Morocco menaced, and it was from Morocco that he drew, for the most
part, his arms, his clothing, his ammunition, not, as has been
erroneously stated, by splendid and gratuitous grants from Sultan
Abderahman, but by the ordinary course of commercial transactions.
The Kabyles of Nedrouma, once his most devoted partisans, had, amongst
others, submitted to the French general. The sight of Abdel Kader
amongst them at once rekindled all their former loyalty and enthusiasm.
They prayed for forgiveness; they asked to be allowed to wipe out their
shame on the field of glory. The Beni Snassen, and other frontier
tribes, followed their example, and rallied again around his standard.
These, in addition to his own regulars, gave him about 3,000 cavalry and
5,000 infantry,—a force sufficient to confront the enemy.
During the months of March and April, 1842, the hills and valleys of the
Traara and Nedrouma Mountains, the banks of the Tafna and the Sickak,
became the scenes of constant encounters between him and General Bedeau.
The fate of the campaign still hung doubtfully in the balance, when
Abdel Kader was summoned to the environs of Mascara. Despite the
precautions of his brother-in-law, Mustapha-ibn-Tamy, of Il Berkani, and
of Sidi Embarak, his most illustrious chiefs, Lamoricière was gaining
ground. Several tribes had gone over; a large portion even of the
Hashems, his own tribe, had been carried away by the contagious example.
Lamoricière, imagining Abdel Kader to be sufficiently occupied by
Bedeau, had extended his excursions towards the Sahara. Abdel Kader
seized the opportune occasion to re-assert and enforce his power amongst
the tribes who had deserted him around Mascara. But, with due
discrimination, he drew a line between wilful treason and unavoidable
secession. Wherever there were proofs of collusion with the French, of
treasonable correspondence, of active participation, his punishments
were severe and unsparing. Terrible, indeed, were, at times, the
examples he made of tribes who, by their premeditated alliance with the
infidel, had justly drawn down upon themselves the fearful punishment
awarded by the Koran upon traitors to their religion and their God.
Lamoricière hurried back in all haste on hearing of the Sultan’s re-
appearance on his own field of operations. But he had to re-conquer all
the territory he had lately gained. To his surprise, tribes, which had
but recently joined him, now stood coalesced against him. Fighting his
way gallantly through all obstacles, he eagerly sought to measure his
sword with the moving genius of this unexpected revival. He heard that
Abdel Kader was in force at Tekedemt, and on Tekedemt he forthwith
marched.
He arrived there, indeed, but just in time to learn that Abdel Kader had
fallen on Changarnier in the direction of Miliana. That general,
counting on the absence of his redoubtable foe, was there engaged in the
comparatively easy task of subduing some refractory tribes. One day he
found himself enveloped with an overwhelming force of Arabs and Kabyles,
horse and foot, regulars and irregulars, led on by Abdel Kader in
person, and rushing furiously to the combat.
For two days and nights the battle raged incessantly. The combatants
engaged in deadly strife, hand to hand and foot to foot with pistols,
swords, yataghans, or bayonets. Suddenly the combat ceased. Abdel Kader
drew off his army and disappeared. The French had suffered too severely
and were too exhausted to follow him up. Two days afterwards news
reached them to the effect that Abdel Kader had dashed into the Metija,
was ravaging the plains, and carrying terror to the very gates of
Algiers.
Bearing away to his right, after performing this exploit, Abdel Kader
ascended the Atlas, penetrated to the Ouarensis, beyond Tittery, and
reached the Sahara. Everywhere he occupied himself in arousing
populations, inspiriting tribes, and organising contingents. After
sweeping over a space of some three hundred leagues, he returned, with
recruited forces and increased energy, to press upon the garrison of
Mascara, under Lamoricière, with all the rigours of a winter blockade.
Notwithstanding all these incredible and in some measure successful
efforts, which were now, more than ever, necessary to sustain him in his
arduous and double task of thwarting the designs of his formidable
enemies from without, and of curbing the fast-spreading spirit of
defection within, Abdel Kader began to feel that he was struggling with
adverse fortune. All his fixed establishments had been invaded and
destroyed. The ketna, his ancestral abode, had been ravaged and laid
waste. The members of his own family were outcasts. More than all, the
families of his most faithful adherents were constantly exposed, despite
all his vigilance, to rude visits from detested strangers, clothed in
uncouth garb, the soldiers of the infidel, who violated the sanctity of
the harem with heartless mockery and vindictive malice.
Feelings of religion and humanity urgently compelled him to take
measures to meet the exigencies of such a painful and trying emergency.
He determined to remove altogether from the scene of war those whom it
was impossible for him to desert, and whom in the hour of need he might
be unable to rescue. He formed his _Smala_.
This new and singular organisation was simply an agglomeration of
private hearths. To the _Smala_ as to a common asylum and place of
security, the Arab tribes sent their treasures, their herds, their
women, their children, their aged and their sick. It became an immense
moving capital, amounting to more than 20,000 souls. It followed the
Sultan’s movements, advancing to the more cultivated districts, or
retreating to the Sahara, according to the fluctuations of his fortunes.
When in the Sahara, the numerous tents of the _Smala_ were lost in the
distant horizon. When in the Tell, they filled up the valley, and
covered the slopes of the mountains. It was arranged with military
regularity. The _deiras_, or households, with their tents varying in
number according to the respective strength of each, were distributed
into four large encampments. Each _deira_ knew its place. Each chief had
his station marked and his functions appointed, according to his
importance or the confidence he inspired.
Abdel Kader spared no pains to encourage and popularise a system of
emigration, which daily increased from the strongest of human impulses,
and thus gradually and imperceptibly bound the Arab tribes to him by the
strongest of human ties. Four tribes were set apart to watch, protect,
and guide the _Smala_ in its wanderings. A body of regulars kept guard
over it. Jews were expressly commissioned to advance sums of money to
the needy.
Ultimately, indeed, the _Smala_ became a powerful check on the
disaffection of the tribes. For when the French, alluring them with fair
promises, said to them, “Come over to us, we will protect you,” an
invisible voice whispered in their ears, “I have your women, your
children, your flocks, beware!” Thus, an establishment, which was at
first constituted by Abdel Kader as a measure of domestic arrangement,
became in his hands a vast and widely extended political engine.