THE FRENCH CONQUEST OF ALGERIA
It will be easily understood that this undisputed mastery of the
Mediterranean basin had given the Turks of Algeria a very great
impression of their importance, and had left them with little
respect for the European powers. Consideration, therefore, for
representatives of those powers was on the same scale, and when
one day the French Consul, Deval, paid an official visit to the
Dey Hussein to protest about the non-payment of a debt to a French
subject, Hussein summarily sent him about his business with a flick
over the face with his fan.
This took place in 1827, but it was not until 1830 that the French
really decided to have done with the insolence of the dey. An army
of thirty-five thousand men was organized under General Bourmont,
one of Napoleon’s officers, escorted by a fleet of three hundred
ships. Curiously enough the success of the expedition was greatly
facilitated by the lack of vigilance of British guards some twenty
years before.
In 1808 Napoleon had practically decided to conquer Algeria and
Colonel Boutin had been sent on a secret mission to Algiers with
orders to reconnoiter the land. During his return journey the ship
on which he was traveling was captured by a British man-of-war and
the Colonel was imprisoned at Malta.
He, however, succeeded in escaping, and, returning to France, laid
his report before the Emperor, who had by that time decided that
Egypt was a more interesting goal.
Boutin’s plans were therefore put aside, but when the expedition of
1830 was being prepared they came to light again and were exclusively
used in drawing up all the details of the attack.
Wisely avoiding the mistakes of their predecessors who had attempted
to take the stronghold itself, the fleet bearing the army sailed to
the west of Algiers, and in June, 1830, landed without opposition
in the sheltered bay of Sidi Ferruch. The cause of this easy landing
has never been clearly established, but it is supposed that Hussein
either believed that this invasion would share the same fate as all
others, and that by allowing the army to land his victory would be
more complete, or else that he did not anticipate an attack from
that quarter.
However, the fact remains that the whole of the French army landed
without difficulty, and that a few days later they were marching
on Algiers. They met the first elements of the Turkish army at
Staoueli. The battle was fierce, but the French artillery caused
havoc among the ranks of the Moslem troops, which were driven out of
their position. The French headquarters were established on the site
of the future Trappist monastery, which is now a great wine-cellar.
The advance on Algiers was continued, but there were no roads,
and the hills of the Sahel were covered with thick scrub. On June
twenty-ninth, however, the army arrived before Algiers. The attack
on the fortress where Charles Quint had for a brief moment pitched
his tent was immediately commenced. For a time the Turks held out,
but, realizing the futility of their task, they set fire to the
powder-magazine and blew up the great pile, emblem of their long
rule. The French, meeting no longer with any opposition, pushed on,
and on July fifth made their triumphal entry into Algiers.
The immediate result of this victory was for the King of France,
Charles X, to lose his head. He believed that he was now in a
position to exercise absolute power, and he expressed himself
by publishing his famous _Ordonnances_. The consequence was
revolution. Charles X was deposed, and Louis Philippe, the son of
Philippe Egalité, mounted the throne. General Bourmont was relieved
of his post as Commander-in-Chief, giving way to General Clauzel.
As can be imagined, this did not tend to help matters across the
Mediterranean. The capture of Algiers had taken barely a month—the
subduing of the Arabs was to drag on for over thirty years.
In the first place, the new Government in Paris was very diffident
about pushing forward the conquest of the country. At first only
the coast was occupied. This was interpreted by the natives of the
interior as fear, and it was with little difficulty that the young
Emir, Abd-el-Kader, raised the population to a holy war. Until the
year 1847 this struggle continued with varying success, and it was
not until Bugeaud, an old warrior of the First Empire, took charge
of the operations that the unruly chief began to lose ground. The
capture of his _smala_ in 1843 at Taguine in the Sersou was the
beginning of the end. Four years later he surrendered and was
exiled, and he finally died at Damascus. His memory is venerated
by all the Arabs of the country.
Once the emir was out of the way, Bugeaud began to penetrate the
interior by colonization. His famous motto, _“Ense et aratro,”_
was to prove a veritable success, and little by little the country
began transforming itself. In the meanwhile he did not neglect
the conquest of the territory still unsubdued. In 1852 the Oasis
of Laghouat was captured after tedious fighting, and with it the
penetration of the Sahara began.
The last strongholds of the Berbers in the Kabyle Mountains fell in
1857. The country seemed turning toward peace. But in 1864 a fierce
revolt burst forth in southern Oranie; the French punitive column
was massacred, and the rebellion spread all over the department. It
took five years to quell it completely.
Hardly was this over than the Franco-Prussian War broke out and
Algeria again became a center of agitation. The Kabyles for a short
space threatened the peace of the whole country, capturing numbers
of French centers and massacring the inhabitants. The French were
obliged to send troops back from France at a very awkward moment,
but they succeeded in quelling the insurrection. In 1879 the Berbers
of the Aurès made an attempt to rise, but were rapidly repressed;
the same lot awaited the insurgents of southern Oranie in 1881. I
can not pass this point in the history of the conquest without
mentioning a name great in the annals of Algeria though sadly
forgotten by many historians.
I refer to Cardinal Lavigerie, priest and administrator, founder
of the order of the Pères Blancs who did more by his foresight
and calm judgment to bring the Arabs under French rule than any
governor during these turbulent times. His political activities
were only eclipsed by his evangelical work, and his influence in
North Africa has ever remained.
Those who are interested in this subject will find some excellent
reading in _Le Cardinal Lavigerie et Son Action Politique_ by
J. Tournin. This book not only deals with the Cardinal’s long
administration in North Africa but also throws much light on all
those intrigues which finally led to the disestablishment of the
Church in France.
Since then little has occurred to disturb the peace of Algeria,
and, in spite of a certain amount of unrest during the Great War,
there has been no definite rebellion.
The French conquest took long, but, when one looks at the stupendous
difficulties which had to be overcome, one is surprised it was
completed so rapidly. Everything was against it: an unstable
government, which was overthrown at the outset of the campaign by an
equally unstable rule, which itself disappeared a few years later
to give place to the adventures of the Second Empire; statesmen
who had no definite policy as regards North Africa, and generals
who never had sufficient troops nor a free enough hand really to
take up the conquest of the country seriously.
Opposing them was an enemy, composed of born fighters, knowing
the country as well as their horses, amazingly mobile, capable of
concentrating to fight a battle and dispersing again like the sand,
and inspired with the spirit of religious war. The country was
overgrown with thick brush; there were no roads, great mountains to
cross, and, once in the interior, no means of feeding or watering the
army, with no towns from which food or cattle could be requisitioned,
no wells or springs and a climate of great extremes.
When one traverses the great plains of the Sersou and the Hauts
Plateaux leaning back in a comfortable car, or when trekking across
the Sahara to some known water-point among a friendly people, one
often wonders how it was possible for that small French column
in this unknown country to press on after an elusive enemy with
lines of communication of such immense length. There is no heroic
record of their achievements, and, apart from certain names known
to French school-children, no one appears to have been honored or
exalted as responsible for this series of campaigns.
Let any trained soldier consider the taking of Laghouat, three
hundred miles south of Algiers, in a desert, unpopulated and
waterless, and he will wonder how it was done. The conquest of
Algeria by the French is one of the greatest pages of military
history.