A LITTLE HISTORY
The original inhabitants of Algeria were Berbers. The present
native inhabitant of Algeria is the Berber, and yet ask any one
who the natives are and they will reply “Arabs”; some of the
more intelligent will perhaps say “Arabs with a sprinkling of
Berbers.”
But this is wrong. When history first threw light on North Africa
the Berbers were there, and they have not yet departed. It is
true that many invasions and upheavals have passed through Algeria
during the past three thousand years, but, though they have left
their trace, it is only the Arabs who have really left their mark
on the original inhabitants.
The first important landmark in the history of North Africa is the
foundation of Carthage about the year 840 B. C. The Phœnicians had
already settled on the Tunisian coast for some three hundred years
previous to this, but their importance dates from the foundation
of their great city, which was to have such an influence on the
history of the civilized world for six hundred years.
Since this book, however, is not a history of the country, it will
be sufficient to mention the outstanding historical features during
those long years during which war and invasion centered round the
North African shores. The Carthaginian domination flourished in all
its splendor until the year 264 B. C. Up to this period those hardy
merchant mariners were masters of the whole of the Mediterranean;
they had explored the Atlantic coast as far as Sierra Leone;
one expedition had sailed right round the African continent;
and they had made it clear to Rome that they would brook no
interference. Carthaginian naval power was supreme, and she counted
on that alone to ensure her sovereignty of the Mediterranean. In
the latter half, therefore, of that century she had defied Rome,
and in a few years came into armed conflict with the future masters
of the world.
This armed conflict, which was to last for over eighty years, and
which was to produce those names famous to every public schoolboy who
does not despise classical education—Hanno, Hamilcar, Hannibal,
Hasdrubal, Scipio, Fabius Maximus—ended in 146 B. C. with the
destruction of Carthage and the foundation of a Roman province
consisting of modern Tunisia and part of Tripoli. One hundred years
later Numidia, Algeria of to-day, was annexed, and for the next four
hundred years the march of empire continued. At first the Romans
were not a little embarrassed with their new acquisitions, all the
more so on account of the hostile attitude of the Numidian kings
at Cirta (modern Constantine). Strifes and minor wars continued
for some time. Rome aided first one side and then another, but,
finally realizing the futility of her rôle, a strong expedition
was despatched and finally succeeded in defeating the Numidian
king Jugurtha. It was not, however, until the year 46 B. C. that
Cæsar finally routed Juba on the Tunisian coast and in that defeat
destroyed the kingdom of Numidia.
The son of Juba, who had been taken to Italy and educated as a
Roman, was married to the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and
was eventually placed on the throne of Numidia, where he ruled in
splendor until the year 19 B. C. During his reign the empire had
spread and extended over North Africa from the Tunisian coast to
the Atlantic, and its military posts guarded the entries of the
Sahara. The traces of once-glorious Rome remain in various states
of ruin to this day, and will be dealt with in further chapters. It
would take too long to enter into details of the administration of
the country under the Imperial eagle and of the birth and growth
of Christianity in North Africa. The Roman Empire had spread, and
it was not until the beginning of its fall that the rule in North
Africa tottered.
Ever since the beginning of the fifth century A. D. Roman possessions
in Europe were being flooded by the advance of the Vandals. In 428
the terrible Genesric crossed to Africa from Spain, with an army
of ninety thousand men, and landed at Ceuta. Like all new invaders,
he was welcomed as a savior, and his success was instantaneous. He
swept the Roman armies before him, he built a fleet and became the
terror of the Mediterranean, and in 455 took Rome.
How far these conquests would have continued it is difficult to
say had not Genesric died. With his death his followers, who had
drifted into an easy-going state, no longer held together, but
became the prey of jealous strifes among chiefs. Their fall was
rapid. The Roman Government, now transferred to Constantinople,
was awaiting the opportunity to avenge its defeat. A little more
than a hundred years after the landing of the Vandals in Africa,
Belisarius sailed from Constantinople with six hundred ships,
and three months later landed in Tripoli.
The Byzantine invasion had begun, and in three months Belisarius
was able to announce to the Emperor Justinian that North Africa
was again part of the Roman Empire.
But the Byzantine rule did not last long. The country was rent
by wars and revolts; the people were worn out with changes of
government; and, though there remain great forts and mightily walled
cities as a record of this rule, they are evidence in themselves
of the turbulent times which shook the country. When, therefore,
the first Arab invasion poured in, there was nothing to quell
it, and for one last time Imperial Rome struggled for a moment,
staggered and fell.
The first Arab invasion of the seventh century was more a series of
raids than anything else. Mohammed had appeared and died, but his
teaching had remained, and had inspired those bands of wild nomads
to organize themselves. Persia, Syria, Egypt had fallen before the
advance, and soon they began moving farther west. The most important
of these raids was that led by Sidi Okba, who traversed the whole
of Algeria and Morocco, and who, no doubt, would have gone on had
he not been arrested by the Atlantic.
He was killed during his return journey by the Berber army under
Koceila, and he is buried near Biskra, where his memory is venerated.
Hassan followed him, and finally drove the last Byzantines out of
North Africa. Needless to say, the chief object of the invaders had
been to convert the people to the new faith, and little by little
the Berbers became Mohammedans. It did not take long for them to
create dissension in these beliefs, but they remained generally
under the law of the Prophet, respecting the principles even more
rigidly than their conquerors.
However, the most important point of this conversion is that
it created an Arab-Berber alliance for the further march of
Mohammedanism into Europe. It is said that it was a Berber named
Tarik who first crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, and it was after
him that the rock took its name, Djebel el Tarik—the Mountain
of Tarik.
The Arabs and Berbers pressed on through Spain until they were
defeated by Charles Martel at Poitiers in 732 and retired into
the peninsula. The remains of their grandeur can be seen in the
glorious palaces and mosques at Seville, Cordova and Granada. But
the Berbers, being of an independent nature, did not readily accept
the laws and regulations of the allies. In the tenth century there
were a number of insurrections in Algeria, and the Fatimides, or
followers of the descendant of Fathma, the daughter of the prophet,
succeeded for a period in dominating the country. Unfortunately for
them their chief tried to go too far in his independence, and in the
twelfth century the Sultan at Cairo launched a punitive expedition
composed of the five tribes known as the Hilals.
Unlike the expeditions of the seventh century, these invaders
came in hordes, bringing with them their flocks and their
belongings, and sweeping mercilessly across the country, leaving
devastation behind. Arabs and Berbers united to oppose them,
but to no avail. Their armies poured over the land like a cloud
of locusts. The little that was left of Roman civilization was
destroyed, the cultivation disappeared, and North Africa was the
desert of over a thousand years before.
From this period until the end of the fifteenth century North Africa
was given over to pillage. With the exception of the cities of
Tunis, Tlemçen and Fez, anarchy seems to have reigned everywhere,
and there are no records or history of the period. The Arab had
shown his worth; the Arab as an administrator had no qualification;
he has not yet proved the contrary.
At first it was the Spaniards who took the place as rulers of
North Africa. They had gradually driven the Mohammedans out of
southern Spain, and during the first ten years of the sixteenth
century had occupied the seaports from Oran right down to Bougie,
including Algiers. But these conquests did not really interest
them as their eyes were turned to the Indies. Moreover, in the
meanwhile the brothers Barbarossa were scouring the Mediterranean,
and when they were asked to rid Algeria of the Spaniards it did
not take them long to do it. But once the deed was accomplished,
the Turks refused to leave, and in 1546 took possession of Algiers.
For the next three hundred years the White City became the stronghold
of the pirates of the Mediterranean. At first their fleet was
nominally a national navy, fighting against Charles Quint, but little
by little all form of legitimate warfare disappeared and open piracy
became the sole occupation of these wild seamen. Their ships became
independent rovers of the sea; built lighter and more handily than
the average cargo- or war-vessel of other nations, they fell upon
their prey regardless of its flag, captured it, and brought it back
to Algiers. Here the cargo was divided: a quarter to the state,
and the rest to the owner and crew of the vessel. The sailors or
passengers on board the prize were employed as slaves, those who
knew trades, to build and beautify the palaces of their masters,
the more common to work in the quarries or to row in the galleys. If
they were men of importance, they were held to ransom. Among other
prisoners who spent a not too pleasant sojourn in Algeria were
Cervantes, the author of _Don Quixote_, and the French poet Regnard.
It was not long, however, before the powers in Europe began to occupy
themselves with these acts of open brigandage. In 1541, Charles
Quint led an expedition, but partly by reason of adverse weather,
and partly by the strength of the Turkish lair, he was entirely
defeated, and just escaped with a small portion of his forces.
The squadron sent by Cromwell under Blake in 1655 fared better.
Part of the Turkish Fleet was destroyed at Tunis, and the release
of the British prisoners was obtained. Louis XIV sent two fleets
in 1682 and 1688, under Duquesne and d’Estrès respectively,
but, though their bombardments did a good deal of damage to the
fortifications, and temporarily hampered the pirates’ activity,
the effect did not last long.
About the same time Sir Thomas Allen, and a little later Sir Edward
Spragg, inflicted minor defeats on the Turkish fleets, but on the
whole little harm was done; and though Lord Exmouth won a decisive
victory in 1816 and seriously battered the fortifications, he was
unable to land, and it remained for the French in 1830 finally
to shake and destroy a rule which had dominated the Mediterranean
for three centuries. With their entry on to the scene, the period
of anarchy begun by the Vandals finally disappeared, and the task
almost completed by the Romans started again on almost as barren
a soil as that faced by the great colonists of the Mediterranean
a hundred years before Christ.