NINE CENTURIES OF POWER, A.D. 648-A.D. 1535.
The Moslem history of the Regency of Tunis may be conveniently divided
into three epochs. The first is the period of Power, the second that of
Piracy, and the third that of Decay. It was in A.D. 648 (the year of the
Flight 26) that the Arabs, under Abd Allah Ben Saad, marched upon Gabes
and Sbitela, then called Suffetula. The great Prefect Gregory raised an
army of 120,000 men to oppose their advance, but on the plains of Akouba
he lost both his life and his semi-independent dominions. Leaving the
conquered province to the care of a chief named Djenaha, Abd Allah Ben
Saad returned to Egypt. Sixteen years later Susa surrendered to the army
of Abd Allah Ben Zobir, and six years afterwards Okba Ben Nafé el Fehri
took Bizerta (properly called Ben Zert), and in A.D. 670 founded the
city of Kairwán.[12]
After carrying the arms of Islam to Fezzan and Morocco, Okba was slain
ingloriously in the neighbourhood of Biscara. The oasis which surrounds
his tomb bears the name of Sidi Okba to the present day. In A.D. 694
Hassan Ben el Noman destroyed Carthage, Tunis, and the neighbouring
towns. Both Okba and Hassan were obliged to struggle against hostile
movements of the indigenous Berbers. The annals of Tunis at this point
merge for many years in those of Kairwán. Abd el Rahman Ben Habib
founded in A.D. 745 the dynasty of the Abassides in the West, but half a
century later they succumbed before the Aghlabites under the auspices of
the Caliph Haroun el Rachid. Eleven princes succeeded Ibrahim Ben el
Agheleb, the first of the line, and it was the Aghlabite sovereign Abou
Muhamed Ziadat Allah who conquered Sicily, but in A.D. 909 they were
overthrown in the revolution headed by Abou Abd Allah the Fathamite, who
obtained the sway from Morocco to the district of Barca in Tripoli. The
Obeïdite or Fathamite princes assumed the title of Caliph, and made
Kairwán and the Mehdia successively the seat of their administration. In
A.D. 972 the Caliph El Moëz conquered Egypt, and left the care of his
dominions in Western Africa to his lieutenant Ebn Zeïri, who became
independent, and transmitted his province to his descendants—the
Zeïrites. This dynasty struggled successively with the Elmorabetin or
Almoravides and the Almohades, who at length obtained supreme power over
nearly all the North African littoral. Several powerful Berber clans
seem to have waged war against the Almohades, and so far succeeded in
weakening their power that, in A.D. 1228, one of their lieutenants, Abou
Zakaria Yahya, son of Abou Muhamed Abd el Wahed _Ben Abou Hafs_,
declared himself independent in Tunis, and founded the line of Hafsite
sovereigns, who exercised supreme power in Tunis for a little more than
three centuries.
It was during the reign of the Hafsite prince Abou Abd Allah Muhamed el
Mostancer, that the first French expedition to Tunis took place. In the
month of July 1270 the fleet of Louis IX. arrived at Cagliari in
Sardinia. At a great council held here the king announced his intention
of making an attack on the “country of Tunis,” the primary object of the
seventh crusade. The following are the reasons which he gave for his
determination:—“Tunis,” said St. Louis, “faces Sicily, and is on the
high road to the Holy Land. Tunis can always harass our communications
with the East; we must leave no enemies behind us, and we must therefore
conquer it first of all.” On the 17th July Louis of France and the
princes in his train anchored their ships off Cape Carthage. The landing
of the invaders was unopposed, and the king contented himself with
entrenching his army amidst the ruins which then covered the site of the
great city. “The Arabs,” says M. Pellissier, “encouraged by the inaction
of the crusaders, came every day to skirmish in the vicinity of the
camp. If one pursued them they fled, but when the French returned to
their quarters, tired out by a bootless chase, the Arabs turned round
and assailed them with arrows and javelins. This is exactly how they
treat us to-day.”[13] M. Pellissier must have contemplated with the eye
of prophecy the campaign of 1881. Days and weeks passed by and the
sorties of the Arabs became more frequent, the soldiers entreated to be
allowed to march against them, but the king insisted on waiting for his
brother, Charles of Sicily. Then, as six hundred and eleven years later,
came the ravages of dysentery and fever. One after another the great
chieftains shared the fate of the common soldiers, and the fair hill
overlooking the blue waves and purple mountains of the Gulf of Tunis
became, as it had often become before, a vast hecatomb. The king himself
was at last struck down with the fell disease. The Arabs sang in chorus
the following song of victory:—
“O Frenchmen, Tunis is the sister of Cairo, prepare yourselves for
every kind of misfortunes.
This time the house of Lokman[14] will be a tomb,
And your keepers shall be Monker and Menákir.”[15]
St. Louis died. Charles of Sicily arrived the following day and assumed
the command of the army. A series of successes on the part of the French
induced the king, El Mostancer, to sue for peace. A treaty was agreed on
between the three Christian princes and the “Caliph, Imám, and Commander
of the Faithful,” which assured the reciprocal protection of French and
Tunisian subjects. Priests and merchants were allowed to establish
themselves in Tunis. All prisoners were to be surrendered. The Commander
of the Faithful bound himself to pay a war indemnity of 210,000 ounces
of gold, and an annual tribute of 24,000 ounces to the King of Sicily.
The convention was distasteful in the highest degree both to Christian
and Moslem, and the chroniclers tell us that even at that remote period
Charles of Sicily was accused of what is now called _tripotages_.
A week after the signing of the treaty Prince Edward of England,
afterwards Edward I., arrived. He was justly indignant at all that had
been done, and at once set sail for Palestine. The kings of France,
Sicily, and Navarre did not embark till October. The “Commander of the
Faithful” was afraid his subjects would again come into collision with
the Christians, and planned the raising of a mixed corps of soldiers to
protect them.[16] Here we have apparently the prototype of General
Lambert’s apocryphal legion in 1881. The misfortunes of the crusaders
did not end here. A great portion of the fleet was shipwrecked off
Trapani, and the avaricious Charles applied all the _flotsam_ and
_jetsam_ without any scruple to his own use. Then the King and Queen of
Navarre died of fever at Trapani, and three other members of the royal
family of France survived their return from the pestilential camp of
Carthage only a few months. The Beni Hafs were never more molested by a
French invasion.