The Story of the Barbary Corsairs Part 13

XXII.

THE FRENCH IN AFRICA.

1830-1881.

The successes of the English and American fleets had produced their effects, not so much in arresting the course of piracy, as in encouraging the European States to defy the pirates. The _coup de grace_ was administered by France--the _vis-a-vis_, the natural opponent of the Algerine Corsairs, and perhaps the chief sufferer by their attacks. A dispute in April, 1827, between the French consul and the Dey, in which the former forgot the decencies of diplomatic language, and the latter lost his temper and struck the offender with the handle of his fan, led to an ineffectual blockade of Algiers by a French squadron for two years, during which the Algerines aggravated the breach by several acts of barbarity displayed towards French prisoners. Matters grew to a crisis; in August, 1829, the Dey dismissed a French envoy and fired upon his s.h.i.+p as he was retiring under a flag of truce; and it became evident that war on a decisive scale was now inevitable.

Accordingly, on May 26th, 1830, a large fleet sailed out of Toulon.

Admiral Duperre commanded, and the land-forces on board numbered thirty-seven thousand foot, besides cavalry and artillery. Delayed by stress of weather, the fleet was not sighted off Algiers till June 13th, when it anch.o.r.ed in the Bay of Sidi Ferruj, and there landed next day, with little opposition, and began to throw up entrenchments.

A force of Arabs and Kabyles was severely defeated on the 19th, with the loss of their camp and provisions, and the French slowly pushed their way towards the city, beating back the Algerines as they advanced. The defenders fought game to the last, but the odds were overwhelming, and the only wonder is that so overpowering a force of besiegers, both by sea and land, should have evinced so much caution and diffidence of their own immense superiority. On July 4th, the actual bombardment of the city began; the Fort de l'Empereur was taken, after the Algerines had blown up the powder magazine; and the Dey asked for terms of surrender. Safety of person and property for himself and for the inhabitants of the city was promised by the French commander, and on this condition the enemy occupied Algiers on the following day, July 5th. A week later the Dey, with his family and attendants and belongings, sailed for Naples in a French frigate, and Algiers had seen the last of its Mohammedan rulers.[93]

Here, so far as Algiers is concerned, the Story of the Corsairs properly ends. But a glance at the events which have occurred during the French occupation may usefully supplement what has already been recorded. The conquest had been marked by a moderation and humanity which did infinite honour to the French arms; it would have been well if a similar policy had distinguished their subsequent proceedings. It is not necessary to dwell upon the a.s.surance given by France to Great Britain that the occupation was only temporary; upon the later announcement of permanent annexation; or upon England's acquiescence in the perfidy, upon the French engaging never to push their conquests further to the east or west of Algiers--an engagement curiously ill.u.s.trated by the recent occupation of Tunis. But if the aggrandizement of France in North Africa is matter for regret, infinitely more to be deplored is the manner in which the possession of the interior of the country has been effected. It is not too much to say that from the moment when the French, having merely taken the city of Algiers, began the work of subduing the tribes of the interior in 1830, to the day when they at last set up civil, instead of military, government, after the lessons of the Franco-German war in 1870, the history of Algeria is one long record of stupidly brutal camp-rule, repudiation of sacred engagements, inhuman ma.s.sacres of unoffending natives of both s.e.xes and all ages, violence without judgment, and severity without reason. One French general after another was sent out to bring the rebellious Arabs and Kabyles into subjection, only to display his own incompetence for the inhuman task, and to return baffled and brutalized by the disgraceful work he thought himself bound to carry out. There is no more humiliating record in the annals of annexation than this miserable conquest of Algiers. It is the old story of trying to govern what the conquerors call "n.i.g.g.e.rs," without attempting to understand the people first.

Temper, justice, insight, and conciliation would have done more in four years than martial intolerance and drum tyranny accomplished in forty.

In all these years of miserable guerilla warfare, in which such well-known commanders as Bugeaud, Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, MacMahon, and many more, learned their first demoralizing lessons in warfare, the only people who excite our interest and admiration are the Arab tribes. That they were unwise in resisting the inevitable is indisputable; but it is no less certain that they resisted with splendid valour and indomitable perseverance. Again and again they defeated the superior forces of France in the open field, wrested strong cities from the enemy, and even threatened to extinguish the authority of the alien in Algiers for ever. For all which the invaders had only to thank themselves. Had General Clausel, the first military governor of Algiers, been a wise man, the people might have accepted, by degrees, the sovereignty of France. But the violence of his measures, and his ignorance of the very word "conciliation," raised up such strenuous opposition, engendered such terrible reprisals, and set the two parties so hopelessly against each other, that nothing less than a prolonged struggle could be expected.

The hero of this sanguinary conflict was 'Abd-el-Kadir, a man who united in his person and character all the virtues of the old Arabs with many of the best results of civilization. Descended from a saintly family, himself learned and devout, a Haj or Meccan pilgrim; frank, generous, hospitable; and withal a splendid horseman, redoubtable in battle, and fired with the patriotic enthusiasm which belongs to a born leader of men, 'Abd-el-Kadir became the recognized chief of the Arab insurgents. The Dey of Algiers had foreseen danger in the youth, who was forced to fly to Egypt in fear of his life. When he returned, a young man of twenty-four, he found his country in the hands of the French, and his people driven to desperation. His former fame and his father's name were talismans to draw the impetuous tribes towards him; and he soon had so large a following that the French deemed it prudent for the moment to recognize him (1834) as Emir of Maskara, his native place, of which he had already been chosen king by general acclamation. Here he prepared for the coming struggle; and when the French discovered a pretext for attacking him in 1835, they were utterly routed on the river Maska. The fortunes of war vacillated in the following year, till in May, 1837, 'Abd-el-Kadir triumphantly defeated a French army in the plain of the Metija. A fresh expedition of twenty thousand met with no better success, for Arabs and Berbers are hard to trap, and 'Abd-el-Kadir, whose strategy evoked the admiration of the Duke of Wellington, was for a time able to baffle all the marshals of France. The whole country, save a few fortified posts, was now under his sway, and the French at last perceived that they had to deal with a pressing danger. They sent out eighty thousand men under Marshal Bugeaud, and the success of this officer's method of sweeping the country with movable columns was soon apparent. Town after town fell; tribe after tribe made terms; even 'Abd-el-Kadir's capital, Takidemt, was destroyed; Maskara was subdued (1841); and the heroic chief, still repudiating defeat, retreated to Morocco. Twice he led fresh armies into his own land, in 1843 and 1844; the one succ.u.mbed to the Duc d'Aumale, the other to Bugeaud. Pelissier covered himself with peculiar glory by smoking five hundred men, women, and children to death in a cave. At last, seeing the hopelessness of further efforts and the misery they brought upon his people, 'Abd-el-Kadir accepted terms (1847), and surrendered to the Duc d'Aumale on condition of being allowed to retire to Alexandria or Naples. It is needless to add that, in accordance with Algerian precedent, the terms of surrender were subsequently repudiated, though not by the Royal Duke, and the n.o.ble Arab was consigned for five years to a French prison. Louis Napoleon eventually allowed him to depart to Brusa, and he finally died at Damascus in 1883, not, however, before he had rendered signal service to his former enemies by protecting the Christians during the ma.s.sacres of 1860.

Though 'Abd-el-Kadir had gone, peace did not settle upon Algeria.

Again and again the tribes revolted, only to feel once more the merciless severity of their military rulers. French colonists did not readily adopt the new field for emigration. It seemed as though the best thing would be to withdraw from a bootless, expensive, and troublesome venture. Louis Napoleon, however, when he visited Algiers in 1865, contrived somewhat to rea.s.sure the Kabyles, while he guaranteed their undisturbed possession of their territories; and until his fall there was peace. But the day of weakness for France was the opportunity for Algiers, and another serious revolt broke out; the Kabyles descended from their mountains, and Gen. Durieu had enough to do to hold them in check. The result of this last attempt, and the change of government in France, was the appointment of civil instead of military governors, and since then Algeria has on the whole remained tranquil, though it takes an army of fifty thousand men to keep it so. There are at least no more Algerine Corsairs.

It remains to refer to the affairs of Tunis. If there was provocation for the French occupation of Algiers in 1830, there was none for that of Tunis in 1881.[94] It was a pure piece of aggression, stimulated by the rival efforts of Italy, and encouraged by the timidity of the English Foreign Office, then under the guidance of Lord Granville. A series of diplomatic grievances, based upon no valid grounds, was set up by the ingenious representative of France in the Regency--M.

Theodore Roustan, since deservedly exposed--and the resistance of the unfortunate Bey, Mohammed Es-Sadik, to demands which were in themselves preposterous, and which obviously menaced his semi-independence as a viceroy of the Ottoman Empire, received no support from any of the Powers, save Turkey, who was then depressed in influence and resources by the adversities of the Russian invasion.

The result was natural: a strong Power, unchecked by efficient rivals, pursued her stealthy policy of aggression against a very weak, but not dishonest, State; and finally seized upon the ridiculous pretext of some disturbances among the tribes bordering on Algeria to invade the territory of the Bey. In vain Mohammed Es-Sadik a.s.sured M. Roustan that order had been restored among the tribes; in vain he appealed to all the Powers, and, above all, to England. Lord Granville believed the French Government when it solemnly a.s.sured him that "the operations about to commence on the borderland between Algeria and Tunis are meant solely to put an end to the constant inroads of the frontier clans into Algerian territory, and that the independence of the Bey and the integrity of his territory are in no way threatened."

It was Algiers over again, but with even more serious consequences to English influence--indeed to all but French influence--in the Mediterranean. "Perfide Albion" wholly confided in "Perfida Gallia,"

and it was too late to protest against the flagrant breach of faith when the French army had taken Kef and Tabarka (April 26, 1881), when the tricolor was floating over Bizerta, and when General Breart, with every circ.u.mstance of insolent brutality, had forced the Treaty of Kasr-es-Sa'id upon the luckless Bey under the muzzles of the guns of the Republic (May 12th). It is difficult to believe that the feeling of the English statesmen of the day is expressed in the words--_Haec olim meminisse juvabit._

The Bey had been captured--he and since his death Sidi 'Ali Bey have continued to be the figureheads of the French Protectorate--but his people were not so easily subdued. The southern provinces of Tunis broke into open revolt, and for a time there ensued a period of hopeless anarchy, which the French authorities made no effort to control. At last they bestirred themselves, and to some purpose. Sfax was mercilessly bombarded and _sacked_, houses were blown up with their inhabitants inside them, and a positive reign of terror was inaugurated, in which mutual reprisals, ma.s.sacres, and executions heightened the horrors of war. The whole country outside the fortified posts became the theatre of bloodshed, robbery, and anarchy. It was the history of Algiers _in petto_. Things have slowly improved since then, especially since M. Roustan's recall; doubtless in time Tunis will be as subdued and as docile as Algiers; and meanwhile France is developing the resources of the land, and opening out one of the finest harbours in existence. Yet M. Henri de Rochefort did not, perhaps, exaggerate when he wrote: "We compared the Tunisian expedition to an ordinary fraud. We were mistaken. The Tunis business is a robbery aggravated by murder." The "Algerian business" was of a similar character. _Qui commence bien finit bien_, a.s.sumes Admiral Jurien de la Graviere in his chapter ent.i.tled "Gallia Victrix." If the history of France in Africa ends in bringing the southern borderlands of the Mediterranean, the old haunts of the Barbary Corsairs, within the pale of civilization, it may some day be possible to bury the unhappy past, and inscribe upon the tombstone the optimistic motto: _Finis coronat opus._

FOOTNOTES:

[93] See the graphic journal of the British Consul-General, R. W. St.

John, published in Sir R. Lambert Playfair's _Scourge of Christendom_, pp. 310-322.

[94] For a full account of this scandalous proceeding, see Mr. A. M.

Broadley's _Tunis, Past and Present_.

THE END.