1841-1842.
It was the month of March, 1841; the night was cold, dark, and
tempestuous. More than a thousand fires glimmered in house, and tent,
and bivouac. Men were anxiously discussing the past stages and future
prospects of the war. Generals were conning their maps; soldiers were
drinking the old accustomed toasts to love and glory; priests were
reading their breviaries; the Bishop of Algiers had just finished
midnight mass. Suddenly a young woman, holding a little girl by the
hand, rushed into his apartment, threw herself at his feet, and in
accents of wild despair exclaimed:—“My husband; the father of my child!”
Her husband had disappeared in the frightful hurricane of war which had
devastated the plain of Algiers. But he was safe; he was with Abdel
Kader.
The good bishop had long deplored, though unavailingly, the melancholy
fate of French prisoners in the hands of the Arabs. He had often
suggested measures for their relief, but French national pride and
dignity had hitherto opposed an impassable barrier to his benevolent
designs. Now, however, touched and excited by the scene before him, he
determined to break the restraints imposed on him, and, confident of
finding a response in the breast of the magnanimous chief to whom he was
about to appeal, he wrote to Abdel Kader.
“You do not know me,” he said, “but my profession is, to serve God, and
in Him to love all men, his children and my brethren. If I was able to
mount on horseback I should dread neither the blackness of the night nor
the roaring of the tempest. I would present myself at the door of your
tent, and would cry out in a voice which, if my idea of you deceives me
not, you would be unable to resist, ‘Restore to me my unfortunate
brother, fallen into your warlike hands.’ But I cannot come myself.
“Let me then send you one of my followers, and let the letter which he
will present to you, and which I have written in haste, supply the place
of that verbal appeal which God would have blessed, for it would have
proceeded from the bottom of my heart.
“I have neither gold nor silver to offer you. Your only recompense will
be the sincere prayers and the deep-felt gratitude of the family on
whose behalf I write. ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.’”
Abdel Kader at once replied in the following terms:—“I have received
your letter and comprehended it. It has not surprised me, after all I
had heard of your sacred character. Nevertheless, permit me to observe
that in the double title you assume of servant of God and friend of men,
your brethren, you ought to have demanded from me not merely the liberty
of one, but of all the Christians who have been made prisoners of war
since the resumption of hostilities.
“Nay more. Would you not be, in a twofold manner, worthy of the mission
of which you speak, if, not content with procuring such a boon for two
or three hundred Christians, you were to endeavour to extend it to an
equal number of Mussulmans who languish in your prisons?”
The celebrated exchange of prisoners at Sidi Khalifa, May 21st, 1841,
was the glorious fruits of this touching fusion of two noble hearts.
The bishop had reserved some Arab orphans whose parents had died in
French captivity. He expected a protest. To his surprise and
astonishment he received a present and a recommendation. “I send you a
flock of goats,” wrote the catholic-minded Sultan of the Arabs, “with
their young who are still sucking. With these you will be able for some
time longer to nourish the little children you have adopted, and who
have lost their mothers. Pray excuse this gift, for it is very
trifling.”
The generous care, the tender sympathy exhibited by Abdel Kader towards
his prisoners is almost unparalleled in the annals of warfare. Christian
generals might sit at his feet in this respect and blush for their
degeneracy. No doubt the prisoners taken by the Arabs were often exposed
to the insults of their barbarous captors, especially when falling
amongst tribes exasperated by the sufferings inflicted on them by the
French. Effectually, however, though slowly, the spirit inculcated by
the Sultan at length gained ground. Barbarism recoiled before it, mercy
prevailed, humanity triumphed.
Wherever Abdel Kader was present, indeed, the French in his power were
treated more like guests than prisoners. He frequently sent them, in
secret, sums of money, varying from five to twenty dollars, out of his
privy purse. They were sure to be well clothed and well fed. Abdel Kader
even went so far as to desire that their spiritual wants should receive
due attention.
It is thus the uncompromising champion of Islamism writes on the
subject, in words that deserve to be printed in letters of gold, to the
Bishop of Algiers:—“Send a priest to my camp. He shall want for nothing.
I will take care he shall be honoured and respected as becomes his
double character of a man of God, and your representative.
“He shall pray with the prisoners daily, he shall console them, and he
shall correspond with their families. He may thus be the means of
procuring them money, clothes, books, in a word, everything they may
desire or want, to soften the rigours of their captivity. Only, on his
arriving here, he must solemnly promise, once for all, never to allude
in his letters to my encampments or military movements.”
The very sight of a prisoner seemed to touch a chord within the breast
of Abdel Kader, which called forth all the more lofty sentiments and
magnanimous feelings ennobling to human nature. His heart, so stern and
dauntless when confronted with danger, expanded and softened with all a
woman’s tenderness before the captive’s dark and dreary fate, like
flowers which only exhale their fragrance to the shades of night.
“Sultan,” said two French prisoners who were brought before him, “we
wish to become Mussulmans; we are ready to make profession of your
religion.”
“If you do so in good faith,” replied Abdel Kader, “well and good. But
if you are needlessly alarmed at your present situation, you will do
wrong. Though you are, and remain Christians, not a hair of your heads
shall be touched. Consider rather what will happen to you should you
return to your countrymen after having renounced your faith. Would you
not be treated as the most criminal of deserters? How can you hope to
benefit by the occasion should an exchange of prisoners take place?”
A French prisoner, kindling with indignation at the bare mention of
apostacy, exclaimed, in presence of Abdel Kader, “As for me, I will
never renounce my religion. You may cut off my head, but make me a
renegade, never!”
“Be perfectly easy, your life is sacred with me,” was the reply of Abdel
Kader. “I like to hear such language. You are a brave and loyal man, and
merit my esteem. I honour courage in religion more than courage in war.”
A celebrated Moroccan chief asked to see the French prisoners. Having
remarked a trumpeter, he asked him to play a tune. The trumpeter sounded
the charge. “What does that mean?” said the chief. “Tell the Sultan,”
said the trumpeter, “that when he hears that sound, the sooner he gives
his horse the reins and gallops off, the better.” The chief, feeling
himself insulted, demanded that the offender should have the bastinado.
“No, no,” said Abdel Kader, “we must be generous and forbearing to our
prisoners.”
Abdel Kader’s repugnance to see female prisoners was extreme. The
thought that women should become victims of war was a source of constant
anxiety to him. One day, the cavalry of one of his Khalifas brought him
in four young women, as a brilliant capture. He turned away in disgust.
“Lions,” he said, sarcastically, “attack strong animals; jackals fall
upon the weak.”
Once he and his followers were reduced to the greatest straits.
Subsistence could hardly be procured. In this extremity, he bethought
him of ninety-four French prisoners lying in his camp in the greatest
misery. He released them all without ransom or exchange. He even had
them escorted to the advanced posts, where they were delivered over to
their comrades, astounded by such an act of generosity.
Numberless acts of magnanimity, known only to the French superior
officers whom he encountered, or with whom he corresponded, testified to
the elevation of his soul. One general officer has since said, “We were
obliged to conceal these things as much as we could from our soldiers;
for if they suspected them, we should never have got them to fight with
the due ardour against Abdel Kader.”
Some French artisans had, by permission of the Governor-General, entered
into a contract with Abdel Kader to execute certain works in four of the
towns he was rebuilding. They were to receive 3,000 francs each. The war
broke out before their contract was completed; nearly half of their work
had yet to be completed. They petitioned for leave to return.
Not only did Abdel Kader at once consent, but he gave them a safe-
conduct and an escort through tribes who were all in arms, and crying
out for French blood. At the frontier the entire sum which had been
agreed upon was counted down to the French artisans, who were thus paid
by the Sultan for works which they had actually not finished.
Converted, animated, inspired by such an example, the Sultan’s chiefs
and delegates, throughout the provinces and districts under their
control, for the most part engaged willingly and cordially in acts of
sympathy, kindness, and hospitality to their fallen foes. Such were Ibn
Salem and Ben Hamedi; such a one, also, was Sidi Embarak, that brilliant
reflex of his master’s mind, whose prisoners, when released, subscribed
to present him with pistols of honour.
But, in all those tender offices which soothe and assuage the
unutterable sufferings of the estranged and forlorn, none exceeded the
Sultan’s mother, the mild, the gentle Leila Zohra. She assumed, as by
inherent right, the guardianship of all the female prisoners. The care
and solicitude she lavished on them was as extraordinary as it was
exemplary. They occupied a tent close to hers. Two of her negro slaves
guarded the entrances. No one was allowed to approach them without an
order. Every morning they received from her own hands presents of oil,
butter, meat, and other articles, for their repast. Did sickness
overtake any of them, she would bring them, with maternal anxiety, tea,
sugar, coffee—anything she thought would contribute to their ease and
comfort.
One day, a batch of French prisoners was brought in and placed
temporarily near her tent. She came out to see them. “What have you come
to do in our country?” she observed, looking on them with compassion;
“it was calm and prosperous, and you have covered it with the desolation
of war. No doubt, it is the will of God which is being accomplished; but
that God is all-powerful, His designs are impenetrable. Perhaps, one of
these days, in the hour of reconciliation, we may restore you to your
homes and families.” Such words of hope, which thrilled through the
breasts, and cheered the wounded spirits of the unhappy prisoners, and
seemed to them like distant gleams of future freedom already beaming on
their captivity, revealed, in one glorious trait, the mother of Abdel
Kader.
By his humanity, Abdel Kader had done much more than only inaugurate a
new era in the treatment of prisoners amongst the Arabs; it was due to
him that soldiers had ever been spared on the field to be taken
prisoners at all. The very word “prisoner” had been hitherto unknown
amongst their savage tribes. To show no quarter, to massacre all who
came in their way and fell into their hands, to count their vanquished
enemies by the number of bloody heads dangling on their horses’ flanks,
and to receive prizes for them, had been their custom, until custom had
almost grown into an instinct.
Who was the first to abolish such atrocious practices? Who prohibited,
with all the severity which circumstances would allow, the custom of
adding to the heads of those who had been slain in open fight, the heads
of prisoners taken alive, wounded or not? Who, in place of the sum of
money heretofore given for each of these sanguinary trophies, gave
double and triple the sum for every prisoner brought in safe and
sound?—Again and again, let Christendom and the whole civilised world be
told, that it was Abdel Kader.
Nor was it without the risk of a general insurrection that Abdel Kader
insisted and persevered in the new course he had marked out. Undeterred,
however, by threats, unshaken by menaces, he went steadily on till he
had achieved the moral revolution dictated to him by religion and
humanity. One of his soldiers, at the commencement of this reform,
insolently demanded of him—
“How much will you give for a prisoner?”
“Eight dollars.”
“And how much for a head cut off?”
“Twenty-five blows on the soles of the feet.”
One day, Abdel Kader desired that five prisoners, already some weeks in
custody, should be brought before him. Three were immediately summoned
by the Khalifa, to whose charge they had been given. The latter,
dreading the Sultan’s queries, turned to the prisoners and said—
“There, take these burnouses, throw them over your shoulders; the Sultan
calls for you. If he asks you any questions, mind you say that you have
been well treated, and that you have wanted for nothing.”
“Very good; but if we are asked if those burnouses are our own?”
“Say that you have had them a long time.”
“Agreed.”
“Woe to you if you make any complaint. Now follow me to the Sultan.”
After having given these warnings, the Khalifa proceeded with his
prisoners to the tent of the Sultan. Abdel Kader was seated in one
corner, surrounded by his principal chiefs and Marabouts. The reception
of the prisoners was designedly solemn. The Arabs and their Sultan
preserved a mysterious silence. The three prisoners advanced, preceded
by Hadj Mustapha, the Sultan’s brother-in-law.
“Which of you is the trumpeter?” said the Sultan.
“I am.”
“Take that letter, it is for you.”
As the prisoner read the letter, his cheeks became flushed; tears rushed
into his eyes; his limbs trembled with excitement. It was a letter from
his General, informing him that the Legion of Honour had been conferred
on him, for his bravery in devoting himself for the safety of his
colonel, in the affair of Sept. 22nd, 1843.
“Step forward,” said the Sultan.
The trumpeter advanced a few paces.
Abdel Kader, with his own hands, fixed the Cross of the Legion of Honour
on his breast.
Then, turning to his brother-in-law, he said:—
“I only see three prisoners. There were five: where are the other two?”
“They are dead.”
“Since when?”
“A long time ago.”
“Did they die of sickness?”
“We shot them.”
“Shot them!” exclaimed the Sultan, looking sternly at his brother-in-
law.
“They tried to escape.”
“Is that a reason for killing them? This is wicked, unjust, infamous. If
the French were to kill my Arabs who are their prisoners, what would you
say?”
“Dogs of Christians.”
“Enough; for shame! I will have no more of these doings. Do you
understand me? This shall and must be the last. Give the prisoners
thirty francs a-piece, place them in my camp, and mind they are well
provided for.”
From this moment, Abdel Kader determined to procure a national edict as
regarded the treatment of prisoners; for notwithstanding all his
vigilance, isolated instances of barbarity still continued to occur. He
convoked a grand council of all the Khalifas, the Agas, the Kaids, and
chiefs of tribes. Three hundred assembled. Standing up before them, he
took for the text of his oration, an article in the Koran, where
Mohammed blames his brother-in-law Ali for having slain five hundred
infidels after they had surrendered.
Applying this passage to the case of French soldiers taken prisoners,
Abdel Kader vehemently insisted that they should no more be wantonly
killed or mutilated. After eloquently showing, to the conviction of his
audience, the inhumanity, the disgrace, the inutility of such actions,
he demanded a decree to the effect, that every Frenchman, whether taken
in action or otherwise, should be looked upon as a prisoner, and be
treated with every consideration, until an opportunity presented itself
for effecting his exchange.
The proposition of the Sultan received the approval of the majority of
the council. The following decree was at once drawn up; and hundreds of
copies were made, and forthwith distributed throughout all the towns,
villages, and tents, in the Sultan’s dominions:—
“Be it ordained, that every Arab who shall bring in a French soldier, or
a Christian, safe and sound, shall receive a reward, amounting to eight
dollars for a male, and ten dollars for a female.
“Every Arab who has a Frenchman or a Christian in his possession, is
held responsible for his good treatment. He is hereby commanded, on pain
of the severest punishment, to conduct his prisoner, without delay,
either to the nearest Khalifa, or before the Sultan himself. On doing
this, he shall receive the promised reward.
“In the case of any prisoner complaining of the slightest ill-treatment,
the Arab, his captor, shall lose all claims for reward.”
Once—and once only—after the publication of this order, it was reported
to Abdel Kader that one of his regulars had been taken up with a
Frenchman’s head in his hands. Starting with indignation, he instantly
wrote to the Khalifa of the district where the case had occurred,
commanding him to bring the culprit forthwith to head-quarters. He
resolved to make a severe example. His regular regiments, both infantry
and cavalry, and the contingents of irregular cavalry, of the tribes
nearest by, were all convoked to a grand parade.
On the day, and at the hour fixed, all were under arms. Abdel Kader
stood surrounded by his civil and military chiefs. The culprit was led
forth; the head was placed before the Sultan.
“Prisoner,” said Abdel Kader, “was the man to whom this head belonged
dead or alive, before you cut it off?”
“Dead.”
“Then you shall receive two hundred and fifty blows, for having
disobeyed my orders. This punishment shall teach you that, as a dead man
can be no man’s enemy, it is cowardly and brutal to mutilate him.”
The soldier was laid down, and received his award. He rose, and thinking
his punishment over, was moving off.
“Stay a little,” said the Sultan, “I have another question to ask you.
While you were cutting off the man’s head, where was your musket?”
“I had laid it on the ground.”
“Two hundred and fifty blows more, then, for having abandoned your arms
on the field.”
After this second punishment, the unhappy regular could hardly stand on
his feet. Some men stepped forth to carry him away.
“Not in such a hurry,” said the Sultan, again; “I have another question
yet to ask. After you had cut off the man’s head, how did you manage to
carry your musket and the head at the same time?”
“I held my musket in one hand, and the head in the other.”
“That is to say, you carried your musket in such a manner that you could
not have made use of it. Give him two hundred and fifty blows more.”
Such unbending severity had its due effect. The French had no longer
occasion to dread falling alive into the hands of the Arabs. When taken
they were regularly and carefully conducted to the station of the
nearest Khalifa. On arriving there, they were subjected to a strict but
mild examination, and were simply asked to what corps they had belonged,
when and how they had been taken, and whether they had been well treated
by their captors.
After their declarations had been duly taken down and registered, they
were forwarded to certain _depôts_ appointed for the reception of
prisoners. The men were generally sent to Taza, or Tekedemt. The women,
invariably to the Smala, to be cared for and superintended by the
Sultan’s mother.
Not satisfied with ameliorating the condition of his own prisoners of
war, Abdel Kader was extremely desirous of pushing the principle of
humanity still further, by establishing a regular exchange of prisoners
on both sides. Often and earnestly did he plead with the French
generals, that the precedent so auspiciously established and carried
into effect at Sidi Khalifa, might be extended and confirmed as a
system. But he pleaded in vain.