CHAPTER XV

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1841-1842.

With the year 1841 commenced the real and decisive struggle. The French, with too exclusive reliance on their superiority in discipline and resources, calculated that it would terminate in a few months. Owing to the unimagined means of resistance evoked and wielded by the great chief who defied them, it was destined yet to last, with alternate vicissitudes of success, for six years.

On the 22nd of February, 1841, General Bugeaud assumed the functions of Governor-General of Algeria. Abdel Kader regarded the appointment as a hopeful presage. He would have little difficulty, he conceived, in coming to a good understanding with one who had already sanctioned and confirmed his claims to regal power. One of his most famous predecessors, Ouchba-ibn-Naifé, lieutenant of the Caliph Mouaiah, towards the close of the seventh century, after having led his victorious Arabs from Alexandria to Morocco, had signed a treaty with the Christian Emperor of Constantinople, by which he was to be paramount ruler in the interior, while the latter was to be content with holding the towns along the coast.

Such was the arrangement which Abdel Kader had always fondly hoped to see established between himself and the French Government. He thought it not impossible that the new Governor-General might be induced to support and promote such a solution of existing difficulties. Bugeaud’s first proclamation quickly undeceived him. The General therein declared that his opinions on Algerian affairs were completely changed. So far from the French occupation being limited, it was to be extended. Every rival power was to be crushed.

In truth, the French Government had at length taken the measure of their formidable adversary, and had placed 85,000 men at Bugeaud’s disposal. With such an imposing force it was anticipated that Abdel Kader would soon be beaten and driven out of the field.

But the great difficulty was not so much to defeat Abdel Kader as to overtake him. The French were stronger; but he was lighter. The former moved along beaten routes in long columns, encumbered with artillery, ambulances, and baggage. The latter seeing his enemy’s point of attack, evaded him for the moment, and then fell on him when at fault, entangled in ravines and lost amidst precipices. With the Romans, the French might truly say, “Nostros asperitas et insolentiæ loci retinebant.”

Bugeaud altered the tactics of his predecessors. Movable columns winding in various directions obliged Abdel Kader to disseminate his forces, and kept him dubious and uncertain. Heavy baggage and heavy ordnance were abandoned. Recesses hitherto unapproachable, became accessible. Even the commissariat was dispensed with.

The Arabs had one immense advantage over the French. Wherever they went they found provisions. The _silos_ scattered over the land afforded them a never-failing resource. The French had to carry their provisions with them. The difference was serious and important. Lamoricière solved the problem. “The Arabs carry no provisions,” said that General, “why should we?” And he forthwith took the field for a month.

His men carried a few portable hand-mills. On reaching a given tract of country, they spread themselves out in skirmishing order, sometimes a league in extent. They probed the ground before them, as they advanced, with their swords and bayonets. The stones concealing the underground granaries were struck. They had been but loosely and scantily covered with earth. The _silos_ were discovered. Razzias procured sheep. The hand-mills converted corn into flour; and thus the French troops found themselves provisioned on the very spot where they stood.

Bugeaud’s military operations were based on the double principle of conservation and aggression. The main objects of his tactics consisted in re-victualling his garrisons, which barely held their own amidst the ever-active foes surrounding them on every side; in keeping in subjection the Arab tribes who had already surrendered to his arms, by giving them an efficient organisation under French officers,—in overawing others by inexorable razzias and ruthless burning of their crops; and, lastly, in striking, without pause or cessation, at Abdel Kader’s power in all its vital parts, by occupying his strong positions, destroying his arsenals, rasing his fortresses, with the hope of forcing him back, by continual pressure, into the wilds of the Sahara.

The campaign of 1841 opened with a second re-victualling of Medea and Miliana. The losses of the French, before they effected that object, were immense. Abdel Kader disputed every inch of the ground. Bugeaud had gone to the province of Oran. From Mostaganem he led in person an expedition against Tekedemt. On reaching it, May 25th, he found it deserted and partly in flames. Boghar, Saida, and Taza, were successively destroyed.

Abdel Kader, faithful to his lately-adopted system, had determined not to waste his forces in vain attempts to defend his fortresses. He abandoned them all. His regular army was more usefully and successfully employed in harassing the French on their lines of march, or in keeping wavering tribes to their allegiance. In the new style of warfare which he was now called upon to confront, walled towns were an encumbrance to him—impediments, in fact, of which he felt glad to be relieved.

The following characteristic letter, addressed by him about this time to General Bugeaud, admirably portrays the buoyancy of spirit which animated him at a period when everything seemed to indicate his hopeless and irretrievable ruin:—

“What is that craving thus urging France, which calls itself a strong and peaceful nation, to come and make war against us? Has she not sufficient territory? What harm can all she has taken do us, compared with what still remains to us? She will advance, we will retire; but she, in her turn, will be obliged to retire; and then we shall return.

“And you, the Governor-General, what injury can you do us? In battle you lose as many men as we do. Your army is yearly decimated by disease. What compensation do you think you can offer your king and your country for your enormous losses in men and money? A tract of ground, and the stones of Mascara!

“You burn, you ravage our crops, you pillage our _silos_. But what signifies to us the loss of the plain of Eghrees, of which you have not ravaged even a twentieth part, when we possess so many others? The ground you take from us is but as a drop of water taken from the sea. We will fight you just when we think proper; and you know we are not cowards.

“As to our opposing the forces you drag after you, it would be folly. But we will harass them; we will wear them out; we will cut them up in detail; the climate will do the rest. Does the wave cease to rise and swell when a bird skims it? That is the image of your passage in Africa.”

The French had, indeed, already reason to shrink from the task before them. What with the losses entailed upon them by marches and counter- marches, by incessant fighting, by blasting heats, their army had nearly vanished away. Bugeaud, at the close of the year 1841, had to report, that of 60,000 men, he had only 4,000 fit for duty.

The French Government again sought relief in projects of peace. If the Emir would raise the blockade of the French garrisons, and nominally lay down his arms (it being understood, at the same time, that 30,000 stand should be secretly paid for), all his former rights would be confirmed, it said, all the territory taken from him restored. Abdel Kader laughed at the proposition. “Let the French keep the towns,” he replied. “Will the towns give them food? So long as I hold the country, and can attack and intercept their convoys, my position will still be superior to theirs.”

The very fact, that a proposal for peace had been first broached by the French themselves, confirmed Abdel Kader in his resolution to try the extremities of war. He had already twice reduced them to terms, before his fortresses and arsenals existed. The elements he then wielded still remained to him, even after the loss of these strongholds, and, in truth, were even more effective than before. The Arab tribes had been organised; they moved by a common impulse; they expanded and contracted by word of command; when least dreaded, they attacked; when pursued, they disappeared. Such was henceforth to be the formidable but ever fluctuating principle of Abdel Kader’s operations.

To break the links of this well-compacted chain, and destroy the influence which held it together, by establishing permanent centres of

## action in the very heart of the Arab confederation, and by rapidly

consecutive expeditions radiating from these centres, to give his troops the ubiquity of the Arabs, became Bugeaud’s main object.

It was determined that the province of Oran, as the chief seat of Abdel Kader’s power, should henceforward be regarded as the principal scene of operations. Lamoricière occupied Mascara; Bedeau held Tlemsen; Changarnier watched the western frontier of the plain of Algiers; D’Aumale menaced Tittery. All these were men of promise, able, bold, enterprising, successful; but destined, at a later period, to experience the fickleness of fortune.

Three columns moving from Oran and Mostaganem were despatched to act upon the tribes occupying the vast extent of territory between the sea and the Atlas, as well as those extending towards the Sahara. The first, headed by Bugeaud in person, advanced along the valley of the Cheliff, and then made its junction with the second column under Changarnier, which had started from Blidah. The third column, commanded by Lamoricière, aimed at pushing Abdel Kader back to the south, with the view of isolating him from the tribes attacked by Bugeaud and Changarnier.

Now commenced those wonderful episodes, thrilling in their effect, sublime in their grandeur, as marvels of daring and genius, by which Abdel Kader stamped this glorious struggle in which he was engaged with the impress of his own extraordinary individuality.

Lamoricière, zealously acting up to the instructions given him, to pursue and overtake the Sultan, was always fancying himself on the traces of his object. Suddenly he heard that Abdel Kader was before Mascara. When he had contrived to arrive by forced marches at that place, he was told that Abdel Kader had passed by the rear of his column, and was making a razzia on the Borgia tribes.

Again came the pursuit, and again Abdel Kader, by a bold and rapid manœuvre, leaving his bewildered foes behind him, dashed across the Cheliff, placed himself between Bugeaud and the sea, recovered his ascendancy over the tribes who had deserted him in that direction, made another sweeping razzia to the south of Miliana, and then, rushing back to the Sahara, showed himself there in full force, just as the French had returned, in despair of finding him, to their cantonments.

By ever-recurring evolutions of this nature, slipping between the enemy’s columns, flitting in their front, hovering on their flank, falling on their rear, never at fault, never discouraged, sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in the plains, disconcerting and rendering abortive the most scientific military combinations, Abdel Kader amply compensated for the disparity of his means, and counterbalanced the manifold disadvantages under which he laboured.

Leaving to his Khalifas in Oran the duty of carrying on the desultory kind of warfare which he had so rigidly prescribed, Abdel Kader now repaired to the Traara Mountains on the frontiers of Morocco. The military skill and diplomatic aptitude of Bedeau had imposed obedience on many of the frontier tribes. Abdel Kader saw his communications with Morocco menaced, and it was from Morocco that he drew, for the most part, his arms, his clothing, his ammunition, not, as has been erroneously stated, by splendid and gratuitous grants from Sultan Abderahman, but by the ordinary course of commercial transactions.

The Kabyles of Nedrouma, once his most devoted partisans, had, amongst others, submitted to the French general. The sight of Abdel Kader amongst them at once rekindled all their former loyalty and enthusiasm. They prayed for forgiveness; they asked to be allowed to wipe out their shame on the field of glory. The Beni Snassen, and other frontier tribes, followed their example, and rallied again around his standard. These, in addition to his own regulars, gave him about 3,000 cavalry and 5,000 infantry,—a force sufficient to confront the enemy.

During the months of March and April, 1842, the hills and valleys of the Traara and Nedrouma Mountains, the banks of the Tafna and the Sickak, became the scenes of constant encounters between him and General Bedeau. The fate of the campaign still hung doubtfully in the balance, when Abdel Kader was summoned to the environs of Mascara. Despite the precautions of his brother-in-law, Mustapha-ibn-Tamy, of Il Berkani, and of Sidi Embarak, his most illustrious chiefs, Lamoricière was gaining ground. Several tribes had gone over; a large portion even of the Hashems, his own tribe, had been carried away by the contagious example. Lamoricière, imagining Abdel Kader to be sufficiently occupied by Bedeau, had extended his excursions towards the Sahara. Abdel Kader seized the opportune occasion to re-assert and enforce his power amongst the tribes who had deserted him around Mascara. But, with due discrimination, he drew a line between wilful treason and unavoidable secession. Wherever there were proofs of collusion with the French, of treasonable correspondence, of active participation, his punishments were severe and unsparing. Terrible, indeed, were, at times, the examples he made of tribes who, by their premeditated alliance with the infidel, had justly drawn down upon themselves the fearful punishment awarded by the Koran upon traitors to their religion and their God.

Lamoricière hurried back in all haste on hearing of the Sultan’s re- appearance on his own field of operations. But he had to re-conquer all the territory he had lately gained. To his surprise, tribes, which had but recently joined him, now stood coalesced against him. Fighting his way gallantly through all obstacles, he eagerly sought to measure his sword with the moving genius of this unexpected revival. He heard that Abdel Kader was in force at Tekedemt, and on Tekedemt he forthwith marched.

He arrived there, indeed, but just in time to learn that Abdel Kader had fallen on Changarnier in the direction of Miliana. That general, counting on the absence of his redoubtable foe, was there engaged in the comparatively easy task of subduing some refractory tribes. One day he found himself enveloped with an overwhelming force of Arabs and Kabyles, horse and foot, regulars and irregulars, led on by Abdel Kader in person, and rushing furiously to the combat.

For two days and nights the battle raged incessantly. The combatants engaged in deadly strife, hand to hand and foot to foot with pistols, swords, yataghans, or bayonets. Suddenly the combat ceased. Abdel Kader drew off his army and disappeared. The French had suffered too severely and were too exhausted to follow him up. Two days afterwards news reached them to the effect that Abdel Kader had dashed into the Metija, was ravaging the plains, and carrying terror to the very gates of Algiers.

Bearing away to his right, after performing this exploit, Abdel Kader ascended the Atlas, penetrated to the Ouarensis, beyond Tittery, and reached the Sahara. Everywhere he occupied himself in arousing populations, inspiriting tribes, and organising contingents. After sweeping over a space of some three hundred leagues, he returned, with recruited forces and increased energy, to press upon the garrison of Mascara, under Lamoricière, with all the rigours of a winter blockade.

Notwithstanding all these incredible and in some measure successful efforts, which were now, more than ever, necessary to sustain him in his arduous and double task of thwarting the designs of his formidable enemies from without, and of curbing the fast-spreading spirit of defection within, Abdel Kader began to feel that he was struggling with adverse fortune. All his fixed establishments had been invaded and destroyed. The ketna, his ancestral abode, had been ravaged and laid waste. The members of his own family were outcasts. More than all, the families of his most faithful adherents were constantly exposed, despite all his vigilance, to rude visits from detested strangers, clothed in uncouth garb, the soldiers of the infidel, who violated the sanctity of the harem with heartless mockery and vindictive malice.

Feelings of religion and humanity urgently compelled him to take measures to meet the exigencies of such a painful and trying emergency. He determined to remove altogether from the scene of war those whom it was impossible for him to desert, and whom in the hour of need he might be unable to rescue. He formed his _Smala_.

This new and singular organisation was simply an agglomeration of private hearths. To the _Smala_ as to a common asylum and place of security, the Arab tribes sent their treasures, their herds, their women, their children, their aged and their sick. It became an immense moving capital, amounting to more than 20,000 souls. It followed the Sultan’s movements, advancing to the more cultivated districts, or retreating to the Sahara, according to the fluctuations of his fortunes.

When in the Sahara, the numerous tents of the _Smala_ were lost in the distant horizon. When in the Tell, they filled up the valley, and covered the slopes of the mountains. It was arranged with military regularity. The _deiras_, or households, with their tents varying in number according to the respective strength of each, were distributed into four large encampments. Each _deira_ knew its place. Each chief had his station marked and his functions appointed, according to his importance or the confidence he inspired.

Abdel Kader spared no pains to encourage and popularise a system of emigration, which daily increased from the strongest of human impulses, and thus gradually and imperceptibly bound the Arab tribes to him by the strongest of human ties. Four tribes were set apart to watch, protect, and guide the _Smala_ in its wanderings. A body of regulars kept guard over it. Jews were expressly commissioned to advance sums of money to the needy.

Ultimately, indeed, the _Smala_ became a powerful check on the disaffection of the tribes. For when the French, alluring them with fair promises, said to them, “Come over to us, we will protect you,” an invisible voice whispered in their ears, “I have your women, your children, your flocks, beware!” Thus, an establishment, which was at first constituted by Abdel Kader as a measure of domestic arrangement, became in his hands a vast and widely extended political engine.

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