ALARMS AT THE CAPITAL.
In the early days of July, M. Roustan succeeded in bringing to a
luxurious villa at the Marsa a powerful and zealous ally. At his
suggestion, and through French influence, Monseigneur Charles Martial
Allemand Lavigérie, Archbishop of Algiers, superseded Monsignore Fra
Fedele Suter, Bishop of Rosalia _in partibus_, as Apostolic
Administrator of Carthage and Tunis. Archbishop Lavigérie was
essentially a _prélat de combat_, and his militant missionaries have
been for several years gradually gaining influence in Algeria, Tunis,
and even Tripoli. The French Government could not possibly have obtained
more useful and uncompromising auxiliaries than these white-robed and
red-capped _frères d’Afrique_, who, under the harmless garb of theology,
pill-making, and tooth-drawing, are preparing the path for French
conquests in the unexplored regions of the Sahara. The practical head of
an eminently practical confraternity, Archbishop Lavigérie had been
initiated, by a prolonged residence at the Vatican, into the useful art
of combining doctrine and politics, and came to Tunis fully determined
to acquire a lion’s share in the powers of the Protectorate. Such was
the enthusiasm with which he was endowed, that three years before, he
had succeeded in reducing even the crown of martyrdom to the matter-of-
fact condition of a marketable commodity. In the quarterly issue of the
_Bulletin de l’Œuvre de Saint-Augustin_ for January 1878, I find him
publishing the following notice: “_Adoptions of Missionaries._—Our
associates are aware that by paying the sum of 800 francs, they can
support for a year a missionary in Africa. They become in this manner
partners in his works and meritorious actions, _as well as in his crown
of martyrdom_, as happened in the case of the charitable benefactors,
who adopted the three missionaries who died for the faith _on their road
to Timbuctoo_.” While the Pope is sending a Cardinal’s hat to the
pioneer of French influence and martyrdom-by-proxy in North Africa, the
Pacha of Tripoli is threatened with an incursion of French cavalry (not
indeed to punish the Khamírs), but to chastise the Towaregs on account
of the untimely fate of three other missionaries, who, notwithstanding
the most explicit warnings, insisted on travelling from Ghadámes to
Ghát. This peculiar feature of French policy was clearly foreshadowed
and described in the correspondence of Sir Thomas Reade nearly forty
years ago; and to such an extent has it been now carried that the Bey,
the French Resident, and the Cardinal Archbishop may, at the present
moment, be correctly described as the governing triumvirate of that
portion of the Regency of Tunis which is not in the hands of the
insurgents. Before the summer heat had fairly set in, M. Roustan had
rewarded his friends, harassed his enemies, and reassured M. Saint-
Hilaire; but the unexpected outbreak, in the early days of July, of a
widespread revolution throughout the length and breadth of the Regency,
entailed a very serious interruption in his plans, as well as in those
of his political superiors.
First came the risings at Sfax, Gabes, and Jerba, of which I have
already spoken at length. On the 4th July, information reached Tunis
that the Arabs near Monastir had already defied the Bey’s authority, and
had murdered three Europeans in a neighbouring village. The same evening
the French Captain Mattei was assassinated close to the Bey’s palace and
the Manouba camp. His murderer managed to escape, but an innocent Arab
paid the penalty of the crime. The unfortunate boy, who was shot by
mistake, is buried in the ditch near which he fell, and his mother is a
raving lunatic in the Arab madhouse. The complications, however, did not
seem to disturb at once the unlimited power wielded by M. Roustan. It
was just now that he interfered to prevent the sale of landed property
by an English subject to French bankers, because his consent was not
previously obtained to the transaction. The matter was denied at the
time, but the fact rests on the testimony of M. Valensi, the
representative of the legendary French colony, and the zealous framer of
chronic addresses in favour of M. Roustan, and who himself telegraphed
to this effect to the would-be purchaser.
Every day the news of some fresh accession to the ranks of the rebels
reached the Bardo. On the 18th July, while the Bey was listening to the
details of the capture of his “faithful town of Sfax,” a band of 800 men
belonging to the Zlass tribe, carried off 2000 of the royal camels from
their pasture-lands, not two miles from the Manouba camp and the Kasr-
es-Said gardens. A posse of Arab cavalry entered Kairwán and collected
_vi et armis_ the public taxes, while another party invaded the Enfida
and settled for themselves the vexed question of Hanafee and Melaki, by
driving everybody out of it. Raids on the farms surrounding Tunis now
became of daily occurrence, and at this juncture the Prime Minister
Mustapha hurried back to Tunis as fast as a despatch-boat could carry
him. But the position grew daily more and more serious; the Tunisian
soldiers who had cheered in the very presence of the French at each
halting shot fired by the Bimbashi of Sfax, came back to their quarters
at the capital only to desert. The Bey was now urged to adopt the very
remedy which had been ridiculed by M. Roustan four months before. He was
told to call out the native army and form “a camp,” but his power and
influence were both hopelessly ruined, and he was regarded as a traitor
and a coward by every honest man amongst his subjects. Even while M.
Roustan and General Logerot were elaborating their plans of a Tunisian
expedition, hundreds of the rough Arab soldiers were taking their road
southwards, calling out to every one they met, “We will fight for Ali
Ben Hlifa and the Sultan.” The truth could no longer be ignored;
revolution and anarchy now prevailed both in Southern and Central Tunis.
French troops were every day returning to the Regency, but the heat
still favoured the Arabs. On the 24th July half the Bey’s bodyguard was
missing, and the farm of Mustapha between Mater and Bizerta in Northern
Tunis was pillaged by Arab cavalry. Under these circumstances Sy Ali
Bey, now civilised and friendly, found the task of organising a native
force one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty. The soldiers, who had not
as yet actually deserted, were far more likely to keep him as a hostage
or convey him against his will to the tents of Ali Ben Hlifa, than to
join him in attacking their comrades or co-religionists, for whose
proceedings they entertained a lively sympathy.
On the 26th July a band of insurgents could be seen approaching Rades,
which, as I have said before, is equally visible from Tunis and Goletta.
A panic seized on the inhabitants of both places; business was
suspended, shops closed, boats hired, and a general stampede prepared.
The Bey ordered the bridge between Goletta and Rades to be broken down,
and the passage to be guarded by artillery. A little later in the day
the news came that a well-known Greek gentleman had been murdered in an
outlying farm. The excitement then reached its culminating point, and an
Arab attack was really apprehended. People in Tunis decided to fly to
Goletta, and persons in Goletta determined to take refuge in Tunis. A
crowd of Tunisian fugitives arrived by train at Goletta, but only to
meet another mob of refugees waiting impatiently to take the return
train to Tunis. The meeting of the two crowds formed a very amusing
_tableau_, and the more so because a moment’s reflection must show that
any attempt to invade two walled towns by the Arabs of the interior
would be wholly out of the question.
Up to the present time the Tunisian difficulty, as far as Europe was
concerned, had only affected two platonic overthrows of the Italian
Cabinet: in France everything had gone smoothly, and the Treaty of Kasr-
es-Said had been ratified almost by acclamation. The tide, however, had
now turned, and MM. Ferry and Saint-Hilaire knew it; the expedition,
shorn of its tinsel and trappings, was becoming day by day more
unpopular, and the opinion was fast gaining ground that the French
Protectorate over Tunis was a white elephant of a very costly and
unmanageable character. The time was at hand when Tunis was to become an
unmistakable factor in the politics of France, and to make matters
worse, Bou Amema was threatening simultaneously a very serious
disturbance in Algeria. The general elections were already fixed for the
14th September, but if things meanwhile grew worse in Tunis and Algeria
a disaster might pretty confidently be anticipated. It was therefore
decided to hasten the elections by a full month. “If in September,”
wrote M. De Blowitz, now completely disenchanted, on the 27th July, “the
country were confronted with a serious African campaign, the elections
might be seriously compromised, and a formidable argument afforded to
the Opposition. Consequently, notwithstanding all prior arrangements, it
was decided that the elections should be held without delay, before any
African troubles had time to break out.”
On the very same day, the town of Hammamet, fifty miles from Tunis,
underwent an “African trouble” of a very disagreeable nature. It was
attacked by Arab horsemen, who carried all the cattle belonging to its
inhabitants away into the mountains, and pillaged a house belonging to
the British Consular Agent, Mr. Cacchia, who was doomed to be one of the
greatest losers by the insurrection. The fast of Ramadan now began, but
the Bey reflected on the possibility of sharing the fate of his camels,
and decided, for the first time in his reign, to spend the month in the
comparative security of the pavilion on piles at Goletta. Up to this
time only 400 irregular militia could be collected to form the nucleus
of Sy Ali Bey’s contingent, and the regular army was reduced to about
fourscore men. On the last day of July things reached such a pitch, that
twelve soldiers had to be sent from Tunis to replace those who had
deserted from the guard which protected the pavilion on piles. A few
hours after their arrival they also deserted, together with one of their
officers.