CHAPTER XIII

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1839.

Marshal Valée, notwithstanding his repeated failures, determined to make one more effort to obtain Abdel Kader’s adhesion to the views taken by his Government on the disputed article. In the month of February, 1839, Commandant de Salles was sent on a mission to the head-quarters of the Sultan, who was then at Miliana. The object of his mission was to induce Abdel Kader to give his sanction and approval to the supplementary treaty, which had been signed by his enemy, Miloud-ibn-Arasch.

Although a continuation of the peace was of vital importance to Abdel Kader, in order to enable him to complete his work of organisation, yet to yield the disputed territory was to him a moral and political impossibility.

Politically it was impossible to him, because the territory in question, once ceded to the French, would have given them free means of communication between the provinces of Algiers and Constantine, and would thereby have rendered their possessions more compact, and proportionally augmented their aggresive power. Morally it was so also, because, not only was it repugnant to his own sense of honour to yield up tamely and submissively a point on which he felt himself to be in the right, but the mainstay of his hourly-increasing influence, gained by the almost magic success with which he had gradually circumscribed the French to within little more than gunshot of their own fortresses, would have been dangerously imperilled by any such concession.

He had already repeatedly pacified many anxious inquirers, by the assurance that France would never dare to overstep the limits assigned to her in the plain of Algiers. It was on the strength of this assurance that the military and religious chiefs, convoked on the Habra, had consented to the peace. Without their consent, whatever might have been his own inclinations, he was precluded from listening to any modification of the treaty.

Already, too, sinister reports and insinuations were circulated by the fanatical party that he was secretly paying tribute to the French; that the infidels had received his permission to settle on the sacred soil of Islam, and that the tolerance of such a profanation was little consistent with his lofty boast that he would, ere long, drive them all into the sea.

Placed in this delicate position, Abdel Kader resolved on again convoking all the principal personages in his kingdom, and again calling on them to arbitrate on the differences existing between him and the French Government. The French commissioner was informed of this intention, and invited to attend the meeting, with full permission to enounce his propositions. He accepted the invitation, though with small hopes that he should be able to obtain from the Sultan’s council of war, concessions which the pressure of his Government had failed to obtain from the Sultan himself.

The course of action which Abdel Kader thus adopted was, however, the only one which afforded any prospect for a peaceable adjustment of affairs. Marshal Valée had always ascribed Abdel Kader’s pertinacity to his individual pride and ambition. His feelings of irritation at the manner in which all means of accommodation had been rejected, were increased by the inward conviction that the obstacles raised were the consequence of his adversary’s personal caprice. Abdel Kader counted on his present proceeding to dispel the Marshal’s delusion, if not to induce him to adopt a change of conduct. The Marshal would discover that it was not the sentiments of an individual, but those of a whole people, with which he was contending.

The council of war met. The French envoy spoke; but the decision was unanimous: “War, rather than give up the disputed territory.” M. de Salles returned to Algiers to state the result of his mission. Abdel Kader, on his part, without waiting for further circumvolutions of policy in that direction, appealed at once to a higher quarter, and addressed the following letter to the King of the French:—

“Praise be to the One God!

“The servant of God, Il Hadj Abdel Kader, ibn Mehi-ed-deen, Commander of the Faithful, to H.M. Louis Philippe, King of the French: may his reign be long, happy, and full of glory.

“Since the foundation of Islamism, Mussulmans and Christians have been at war. For ages this was a sacred obligation on both sects; but the Christians, neglecting their religion and its precepts, have finished by looking on war merely as a means of worldly aggrandisement.

“To the true Mussulman, on the contrary, war against the Christians is merely a religious obligation; how much more so when Christians come to invade Mussulman territory! According to this principle, I deviated from the rules laid down in our sacred books, when, two years ago, I made with you, King of the Christians, a treaty of peace; and more especially when I endeavoured to consolidate this peace by every means in my power. You know the duties imposed by the Koran on every Mussulman prince; therefore you ought to give me credit for having taken upon myself to relax, as regards you, the rigour of its precepts.

“But you now demand a sacrifice from me which is too formally in contradiction with my religion to allow me to submit to it; and you are too just to impose it on me as a necessity. You call upon me to abandon tribes whose submission I have received; who came to me of themselves to pay me the imposts prescribed by the Koran, and who beseeched me, and still beseech me, to govern them. I have myself traversed their territory, _which, moreover, is beyond the limits of that which the treaty reserved to France_; and can you now wish, by another treaty, that I should order those tribes to submit to the yoke of the Christians?

“No. If the French are my friends, they can never desire to bring about a state of things which would lower and degrade their ally in the eyes of his people. They would not for the sake of a few miserable tribes, to govern which, themselves, or leave to others to govern, can be of very little moment to them, place me in the terrible alternative either of breaking the law, or of renouncing a peace which is so desirable for us both.

“But some may tell you that this consideration which forces me to reclaim those tribes will oblige me to reclaim the Arabs of Metija, of Oran, and of Constantine. No; for those have remained, and still remain, with the French of their own free will; and I have reserved to myself the right of giving an asylum to those amongst them who may become disgusted with Christian dominion. Whereas, the tribes in question, who are not nomad, but are attached to the soil, seek to be under my government, and are too numerous to allow of my giving them grounds in my territory equal to those they might wish to abandon.

“Great King of the French! God has appointed each of us to govern some of his creatures. You are in a position far superior to mine, by the number, power, and riches of your subjects; but on both of us he has imposed the obligation of making our people happy. Examine, then, with me our positions; and you will acknowledge that on you alone depends the happiness of both people.

“‘Sign,’ I am told by your agents; ‘or if you do not sign, your refusal will be war.’ Well, I will not sign; and yet I desire peace—nothing but peace.

“In order that a treaty should be useful to your subjects, it is necessary that I should be feared and respected by mine; for the moment they see that, according to my good pleasure, I hand them over to the administration of the Christians, they will no longer have any confidence in me, and then it will be impossible for me to make them observe the least clause in the treaty.

“How can you be compromised—you, Sultan of the French nation—by making concessions to a young Emir, whose power is now beginning to be strengthened and fortified under your shadow? Ought you not rather to protect me, to be indulgent towards me—me, who have re-established order amongst tribes which were slaying each other; who seek every day to raise in them a taste for the arts and for liberal professions? Help me, in the place of embarrassing me, and God will recompense you.

“If the war breaks out again, there will be no more commerce, which might confer such inestimable advantages on the country, and no more security for the colonists. There will be increased expenses, and diminished productions. The blood of your soldiers will be uselessly shed; it will be a partisan war to the death. I have not the folly to suppose that I can openly make head against your troops; but I can harass them without ceasing. I shall lose ground, no doubt; but then I have on my side, knowledge of the country, the frugality and hardy temperament of my Arabs, and, more than all, the arm of God, who supports the oppressed.

“If, on the contrary, you wish for peace, our two countries will be as one; the least of your subjects will enjoy the most perfect security amongst the tribes; the two peoples will intermix more and more every day; and you will have the glory of having introduced into our countries that civilisation of which the Christians are the apostles.

“You will comprehend, I am sure, what I say; you will grant me what I ask; and what I ask is this,—that you do not see in a refusal to sign a new treaty, the desire of recommencing war, but rather the wish to consolidate the basis of the old one, and to confirm a sincere friendship between our nations.

“May God inspire you with an answer worthy of your power, and the goodness of your heart.”

The almost supplicating earnestness of this simple and straightforward letter fully evinces the anxiety entertained by Abdel Kader at the aspect which affairs between himself and the French were now assuming, and his sense of the vast importance to himself of a continuation of the peace. On the 31st May, 1839, the ministry of M. Molé was overthrown. A false report had reached Algiers, that he had been replaced by M. Thiers, with Marshal Gerard as Minister of War.

Abdel Kader immediately wrote again to the king, and, at the same time, addressed two letters to the said ministers, with a power of language and a form of argument, which could only have emanated from a mind consoled and supported by the rectitude of its intention, and a firm and unshaken reliance in the justice of its cause.

LETTER TO THE KING.

“I have written you three letters, in which I gave you all my thoughts; not one of them has been honoured with an answer. They have been, doubtless, intercepted; for you are too kind and considerate not to have given me the satisfaction of knowing what were your true feelings and dispositions. May this, my last attempt, meet with better success! May this exposition of what is passing in Africa attract and fix your attention, and lead to a system which shall conduce to the welfare and happiness of the two populations whom God has confided to your care and solicitude!

“The behaviour of your lieutenants is most unjust with regard to me; and I cannot suppose that it is known to you; I have too much confidence in your justice to suppose it. Endeavours are being made to induce you to regard me as your enemy. You are imposed on; if I were your enemy, I should already have found many causes for commencing hostilities.

“Since my refusal to sign the new treaty, presented to me by M. de Salles on the part of Marshal Valée (my motives for which I have already explained to you in one of my former letters), there is no kind of injustice with which I have not been assailed by your representatives at Algiers. My soldiers have been arrested and thrown into prison without any legal cause; an order has been given not to allow the importation of any more iron, or brass, or lead, into my country; my agents in Algiers have been ill-treated by the authorities; my most important letters are answered by a simple receipt, cavalierly handed to the horseman who bears them; letters written to me from Algiers are intercepted.

“After such treatment they tell you I am your enemy. They say that I want war at any price—I who desire, in every way, to follow the example of your industrious nation—I, who in spite of these tokens of hostility, facilitate the arrival of all the productions of my country into your markets—I who surround myself with Europeans, in order to give an impetus to industry, and who issue the most stringent orders that your merchants, and even your men of science, should not only be allowed to travel all over my country in perfect security, but be received and treated with hospitality.

“But you may be told—‘The Emir has not yet fulfilled the first conditions imposed on him by the treaty of the Tafna.’ To this I reply, I have only postponed the execution of these clauses, because your representative, Bugeaud, broke, in the first place, his engagements.

“Where are all the supplies of muskets, of powder, of lead, of sulphur, which were promised to me? Why do I still see at Oran the chiefs of the Douairs and Zmelas, whose removal to France was solemnly promised me? Does Bugeaud think I have not yet in my possession the particular treaty, the only one which interests me, written out entirely in his own hand, and signed with his seal? Could I believe for an instant that written promises from the representative of the King of the French could possibly be invalid?

“I confess, I had so high an idea of the good faith of French Christians, that I was scandalised by their want of good faith, and that having had no direct communication with you, I refused to sign another treaty.

“Yes, your military deputies only wish for new combats and fresh conquests. I am certain this system is not yours. You have not descended on the shores of Africa to exterminate its inhabitants, nor to drive them from the country. You wished to bring them the benefits of civilisation. You came not to make a nation of slaves, but rather to implant amidst the people that spirit of liberty which is the most powerful lever of your own nation, and with which it has dowried so many other countries.

“Is it by the force of arms, is it by bad faith, that your agents will accomplish this end? Should the Arabs be at last convinced that you have come to attack their religion and conquer their country, their hatred will grow stronger than ever. They will break away from my control and authority, and our mutual prospects of civilisation will vanish away for ever.

“I pray and entreat you then, in the name of God, who has created us both, to try and understand a little better this young Arab, whom the Most High has placed, despite himself, at the head of a simple and ignorant people, and who is falsely represented to you as being an ambitious chief. Make him acquainted with your intentions. Above all, communicate with him directly, and his conduct will prove to you that he has been badly appreciated.

“May God grant you the light necessary to govern your people wisely.”

The letter to M. Thiers was couched in the following terms:—

“I congratulate France on your return to the ministry. The important labours which formerly signalised your presence in it, and the interest you always bear towards Algiers, make me salute you with joy.

“Your countrymen who are about me have informed me that your post is charged more especially with watching and superintending the prosperity of France. A part of Africa is become French. In speaking to you of the dangers which menace the prosperity of the two countries, I perform a duty.

“Counsellor of the King of the French, it is for your enlightenment, it is for your philanthropy, to strengthen and consolidate a peace which France and Algiers both demand.

“The despotic caprices of the agents of an honoured Government, the failures in the execution of a treaty on the one side, leading to similar failures on the other; and the greedy and unprincipled ambitions of some, who aim at new spheres of riches and emoluments, threaten to mingle French and Arab blood, when, to my belief, the real truth is, that we all long for a peace which will bring to the Arabs the precious results of progress and civilisation, and to France the glory of having conferred them.

“You are great for France—be so for Africa; and both countries will bless you. Your influence with a king, whose minister you are, and your counsels to a young Emir—entirely ignorant of the intricacies of European politics—are the materials with which you might erect a monument of glory for your own nation, and one of happiness and gratitude for mine.

“May God assist and enlighten you, and maintain you in the high position of which you are so worthy!”

The letter to Marshal Gerard was not less admirably conceived. It ran as follows:—

“As soon as I was informed that the powerful King of the French had made you Minister of War, I had reason to be rejoiced. I felt that one who has nothing to add to his military glory, could never look to the French occupation in Africa as his sole field for military distinction. One who, like you, knows how to make war, must also know how to make peace, and to enjoy its fruits.

“This peace is menaced; and wherefore? For the sake of a few leagues of ground, and a road impracticable from its natural difficulties. Has not France sufficient military glory—has it not space enough—that it should seek to acquire more at the expense of my influence over Arabs, whom I have bound myself to keep in submission?

“My religion prevents me from violating my engagements. Why, then, seek, without any necessity, to lower me in the eyes of my co-religionists by calling on me to give over and place under French administration populations, to whom it is my duty, by the injunctions of our law, to preach the holy war? Let those who would compel me to do so try to understand my religion, and the obligations which it imposes upon me; and then, perhaps, they may be inclined to give me credit for the sacrifices I am making.

“I approach you, then, to call your attention to the exactments of a local administration, which I refuse to believe can be guided in its acts by the wishes of France and of its chief. The French are too great to inspire the vexatious meannesses to which my subjects are constantly exposed in their relations with your representatives at Algiers. My dignity has obliged me to suspend these relations in part. When I saw that they were anxious enough to take the produce of our soil, but refused to supply the iron necessary for cultivating it, I said to them, ‘Sell, but buy no more; God who has given us land has also placed in our mountains all the metals which our pretended civilisers refuse us.’

“I pray to God, that your powerful influence with the king may be employed in seconding my pacific views; and that you and his noble son may, for the sake of self-information, come and visit this country, and meet with him whom you wrongly look upon as your enemy. Then your penetration and your genius, finding in me only sincerity and the desire of doing good, will assist me in moderating, either by civilisation or by arms, the fanaticism of populations who are only just beginning to appreciate the advantages of peace and industry.

“May God make your armies victorious so long as they fight in the true cause.”

These were noble words—words well worthy of being recorded. They were noble in the grandeur of their appeal—noble, as indicating the heroic struggle which rent and lacerated the breast of one conscious of his powers, burning with great designs, and painfully oscillating between a nervous anxiety to prolong a peace which would have enabled him to exhibit before the world a Mohammedan kingdom at its highest possible pitch of progress and development, and the lofty determination to abandon even this his heart’s desire, and to waive the brilliant future, if such objects could only be attained by a craven submission, however temporary, to the imperious dictates of an overbearing and unprincipled ambition.

Such appeals, it may be well imagined, were entirely thrown away on a government which, finding itself entangled in a labyrinth, and thus fettered in the realisation of its secret views, was bent on adopting any measures likely to deliver it from its embarrassing position, however inconsistent they might be with good faith.

Thus, whilst Abdel Kader was still fondly dreaming over the possible fulfilment of plans and projects, meant to harmonise and combine the requirements of Mohammedanism with the advantages of European intercourse, and the fruits of European civilisation, the subtle and powerful enemy with whom he was coping was already meditating a line of

## action which was destined, before long, to scatter those plans and

projects to the winds.

Both parties, it is true, wished for peace; but whereas the one sought for it as a temporary expedient, the other clung to it as a vital principle. Both were bound to their respective people by pledges and obligations, from which they could not recede. Abdel Kader had vowed to keep the French at his sword’s point, in every case of unjustifiable aggression. His attitude was clear and unequivocal; it embodied the strength and the simplicity of truth.

The French Government, on the other hand, had officially and falsely declared to the Chambers, that the difficulties which had been raised about the Treaty of the Tafna had been explained to the advantage of France, and that the possession of the disputed territory was henceforth assured. The pen had easily traced such words, and the mouth had freely spoken them. But it required the sword to make good and establish this foregone conclusion.

The state of doubt and uncertainty had now reached its utmost limit. The period of compliments, of evasions, of hollow friendship, of hypocritical alliance, had passed away. The co-existence of Abdel Kader and France on the soil of Algeria was henceforth impossible. Freed from the entanglements of diplomatic garniture, the gladiators again stood face to face, ready to descend into the arena.

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