CHAPTER XVI

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1841-1842.

It was the month of March, 1841; the night was cold, dark, and tempestuous. More than a thousand fires glimmered in house, and tent, and bivouac. Men were anxiously discussing the past stages and future prospects of the war. Generals were conning their maps; soldiers were drinking the old accustomed toasts to love and glory; priests were reading their breviaries; the Bishop of Algiers had just finished midnight mass. Suddenly a young woman, holding a little girl by the hand, rushed into his apartment, threw herself at his feet, and in accents of wild despair exclaimed:—“My husband; the father of my child!” Her husband had disappeared in the frightful hurricane of war which had devastated the plain of Algiers. But he was safe; he was with Abdel Kader.

The good bishop had long deplored, though unavailingly, the melancholy fate of French prisoners in the hands of the Arabs. He had often suggested measures for their relief, but French national pride and dignity had hitherto opposed an impassable barrier to his benevolent designs. Now, however, touched and excited by the scene before him, he determined to break the restraints imposed on him, and, confident of finding a response in the breast of the magnanimous chief to whom he was about to appeal, he wrote to Abdel Kader.

“You do not know me,” he said, “but my profession is, to serve God, and in Him to love all men, his children and my brethren. If I was able to mount on horseback I should dread neither the blackness of the night nor the roaring of the tempest. I would present myself at the door of your tent, and would cry out in a voice which, if my idea of you deceives me not, you would be unable to resist, ‘Restore to me my unfortunate brother, fallen into your warlike hands.’ But I cannot come myself.

“Let me then send you one of my followers, and let the letter which he will present to you, and which I have written in haste, supply the place of that verbal appeal which God would have blessed, for it would have proceeded from the bottom of my heart.

“I have neither gold nor silver to offer you. Your only recompense will be the sincere prayers and the deep-felt gratitude of the family on whose behalf I write. ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’”

Abdel Kader at once replied in the following terms:—“I have received your letter and comprehended it. It has not surprised me, after all I had heard of your sacred character. Nevertheless, permit me to observe that in the double title you assume of servant of God and friend of men, your brethren, you ought to have demanded from me not merely the liberty of one, but of all the Christians who have been made prisoners of war since the resumption of hostilities.

“Nay more. Would you not be, in a twofold manner, worthy of the mission of which you speak, if, not content with procuring such a boon for two or three hundred Christians, you were to endeavour to extend it to an equal number of Mussulmans who languish in your prisons?”

The celebrated exchange of prisoners at Sidi Khalifa, May 21st, 1841, was the glorious fruits of this touching fusion of two noble hearts.

The bishop had reserved some Arab orphans whose parents had died in French captivity. He expected a protest. To his surprise and astonishment he received a present and a recommendation. “I send you a flock of goats,” wrote the catholic-minded Sultan of the Arabs, “with their young who are still sucking. With these you will be able for some time longer to nourish the little children you have adopted, and who have lost their mothers. Pray excuse this gift, for it is very trifling.”

The generous care, the tender sympathy exhibited by Abdel Kader towards his prisoners is almost unparalleled in the annals of warfare. Christian generals might sit at his feet in this respect and blush for their degeneracy. No doubt the prisoners taken by the Arabs were often exposed to the insults of their barbarous captors, especially when falling amongst tribes exasperated by the sufferings inflicted on them by the French. Effectually, however, though slowly, the spirit inculcated by the Sultan at length gained ground. Barbarism recoiled before it, mercy prevailed, humanity triumphed.

Wherever Abdel Kader was present, indeed, the French in his power were treated more like guests than prisoners. He frequently sent them, in secret, sums of money, varying from five to twenty dollars, out of his privy purse. They were sure to be well clothed and well fed. Abdel Kader even went so far as to desire that their spiritual wants should receive due attention.

It is thus the uncompromising champion of Islamism writes on the subject, in words that deserve to be printed in letters of gold, to the Bishop of Algiers:—“Send a priest to my camp. He shall want for nothing. I will take care he shall be honoured and respected as becomes his double character of a man of God, and your representative.

“He shall pray with the prisoners daily, he shall console them, and he shall correspond with their families. He may thus be the means of procuring them money, clothes, books, in a word, everything they may desire or want, to soften the rigours of their captivity. Only, on his arriving here, he must solemnly promise, once for all, never to allude in his letters to my encampments or military movements.”

The very sight of a prisoner seemed to touch a chord within the breast of Abdel Kader, which called forth all the more lofty sentiments and magnanimous feelings ennobling to human nature. His heart, so stern and dauntless when confronted with danger, expanded and softened with all a woman’s tenderness before the captive’s dark and dreary fate, like flowers which only exhale their fragrance to the shades of night.

“Sultan,” said two French prisoners who were brought before him, “we wish to become Mussulmans; we are ready to make profession of your religion.”

“If you do so in good faith,” replied Abdel Kader, “well and good. But if you are needlessly alarmed at your present situation, you will do wrong. Though you are, and remain Christians, not a hair of your heads shall be touched. Consider rather what will happen to you should you return to your countrymen after having renounced your faith. Would you not be treated as the most criminal of deserters? How can you hope to benefit by the occasion should an exchange of prisoners take place?”

A French prisoner, kindling with indignation at the bare mention of apostacy, exclaimed, in presence of Abdel Kader, “As for me, I will never renounce my religion. You may cut off my head, but make me a renegade, never!”

“Be perfectly easy, your life is sacred with me,” was the reply of Abdel Kader. “I like to hear such language. You are a brave and loyal man, and merit my esteem. I honour courage in religion more than courage in war.”

A celebrated Moroccan chief asked to see the French prisoners. Having remarked a trumpeter, he asked him to play a tune. The trumpeter sounded the charge. “What does that mean?” said the chief. “Tell the Sultan,” said the trumpeter, “that when he hears that sound, the sooner he gives his horse the reins and gallops off, the better.” The chief, feeling himself insulted, demanded that the offender should have the bastinado. “No, no,” said Abdel Kader, “we must be generous and forbearing to our prisoners.”

Abdel Kader’s repugnance to see female prisoners was extreme. The thought that women should become victims of war was a source of constant anxiety to him. One day, the cavalry of one of his Khalifas brought him in four young women, as a brilliant capture. He turned away in disgust. “Lions,” he said, sarcastically, “attack strong animals; jackals fall upon the weak.”

Once he and his followers were reduced to the greatest straits. Subsistence could hardly be procured. In this extremity, he bethought him of ninety-four French prisoners lying in his camp in the greatest misery. He released them all without ransom or exchange. He even had them escorted to the advanced posts, where they were delivered over to their comrades, astounded by such an act of generosity.

Numberless acts of magnanimity, known only to the French superior officers whom he encountered, or with whom he corresponded, testified to the elevation of his soul. One general officer has since said, “We were obliged to conceal these things as much as we could from our soldiers; for if they suspected them, we should never have got them to fight with the due ardour against Abdel Kader.”

Some French artisans had, by permission of the Governor-General, entered into a contract with Abdel Kader to execute certain works in four of the towns he was rebuilding. They were to receive 3,000 francs each. The war broke out before their contract was completed; nearly half of their work had yet to be completed. They petitioned for leave to return.

Not only did Abdel Kader at once consent, but he gave them a safe- conduct and an escort through tribes who were all in arms, and crying out for French blood. At the frontier the entire sum which had been agreed upon was counted down to the French artisans, who were thus paid by the Sultan for works which they had actually not finished.

Converted, animated, inspired by such an example, the Sultan’s chiefs and delegates, throughout the provinces and districts under their control, for the most part engaged willingly and cordially in acts of sympathy, kindness, and hospitality to their fallen foes. Such were Ibn Salem and Ben Hamedi; such a one, also, was Sidi Embarak, that brilliant reflex of his master’s mind, whose prisoners, when released, subscribed to present him with pistols of honour.

But, in all those tender offices which soothe and assuage the unutterable sufferings of the estranged and forlorn, none exceeded the Sultan’s mother, the mild, the gentle Leila Zohra. She assumed, as by inherent right, the guardianship of all the female prisoners. The care and solicitude she lavished on them was as extraordinary as it was exemplary. They occupied a tent close to hers. Two of her negro slaves guarded the entrances. No one was allowed to approach them without an order. Every morning they received from her own hands presents of oil, butter, meat, and other articles, for their repast. Did sickness overtake any of them, she would bring them, with maternal anxiety, tea, sugar, coffee—anything she thought would contribute to their ease and comfort.

One day, a batch of French prisoners was brought in and placed temporarily near her tent. She came out to see them. “What have you come to do in our country?” she observed, looking on them with compassion; “it was calm and prosperous, and you have covered it with the desolation of war. No doubt, it is the will of God which is being accomplished; but that God is all-powerful, His designs are impenetrable. Perhaps, one of these days, in the hour of reconciliation, we may restore you to your homes and families.” Such words of hope, which thrilled through the breasts, and cheered the wounded spirits of the unhappy prisoners, and seemed to them like distant gleams of future freedom already beaming on their captivity, revealed, in one glorious trait, the mother of Abdel Kader.

By his humanity, Abdel Kader had done much more than only inaugurate a new era in the treatment of prisoners amongst the Arabs; it was due to him that soldiers had ever been spared on the field to be taken prisoners at all. The very word “prisoner” had been hitherto unknown amongst their savage tribes. To show no quarter, to massacre all who came in their way and fell into their hands, to count their vanquished enemies by the number of bloody heads dangling on their horses’ flanks, and to receive prizes for them, had been their custom, until custom had almost grown into an instinct.

Who was the first to abolish such atrocious practices? Who prohibited, with all the severity which circumstances would allow, the custom of adding to the heads of those who had been slain in open fight, the heads of prisoners taken alive, wounded or not? Who, in place of the sum of money heretofore given for each of these sanguinary trophies, gave double and triple the sum for every prisoner brought in safe and sound?—Again and again, let Christendom and the whole civilised world be told, that it was Abdel Kader.

Nor was it without the risk of a general insurrection that Abdel Kader insisted and persevered in the new course he had marked out. Undeterred, however, by threats, unshaken by menaces, he went steadily on till he had achieved the moral revolution dictated to him by religion and humanity. One of his soldiers, at the commencement of this reform, insolently demanded of him—

“How much will you give for a prisoner?”

“Eight dollars.”

“And how much for a head cut off?”

“Twenty-five blows on the soles of the feet.”

One day, Abdel Kader desired that five prisoners, already some weeks in custody, should be brought before him. Three were immediately summoned by the Khalifa, to whose charge they had been given. The latter, dreading the Sultan’s queries, turned to the prisoners and said—

“There, take these burnouses, throw them over your shoulders; the Sultan calls for you. If he asks you any questions, mind you say that you have been well treated, and that you have wanted for nothing.”

“Very good; but if we are asked if those burnouses are our own?”

“Say that you have had them a long time.”

“Agreed.”

“Woe to you if you make any complaint. Now follow me to the Sultan.”

After having given these warnings, the Khalifa proceeded with his prisoners to the tent of the Sultan. Abdel Kader was seated in one corner, surrounded by his principal chiefs and Marabouts. The reception of the prisoners was designedly solemn. The Arabs and their Sultan preserved a mysterious silence. The three prisoners advanced, preceded by Hadj Mustapha, the Sultan’s brother-in-law.

“Which of you is the trumpeter?” said the Sultan.

“I am.”

“Take that letter, it is for you.”

As the prisoner read the letter, his cheeks became flushed; tears rushed into his eyes; his limbs trembled with excitement. It was a letter from his General, informing him that the Legion of Honour had been conferred on him, for his bravery in devoting himself for the safety of his colonel, in the affair of Sept. 22nd, 1843.

“Step forward,” said the Sultan.

The trumpeter advanced a few paces.

Abdel Kader, with his own hands, fixed the Cross of the Legion of Honour on his breast.

Then, turning to his brother-in-law, he said:—

“I only see three prisoners. There were five: where are the other two?”

“They are dead.”

“Since when?”

“A long time ago.”

“Did they die of sickness?”

“We shot them.”

“Shot them!” exclaimed the Sultan, looking sternly at his brother-in- law.

“They tried to escape.”

“Is that a reason for killing them? This is wicked, unjust, infamous. If the French were to kill my Arabs who are their prisoners, what would you say?”

“Dogs of Christians.”

“Enough; for shame! I will have no more of these doings. Do you understand me? This shall and must be the last. Give the prisoners thirty francs a-piece, place them in my camp, and mind they are well provided for.”

From this moment, Abdel Kader determined to procure a national edict as regarded the treatment of prisoners; for notwithstanding all his vigilance, isolated instances of barbarity still continued to occur. He convoked a grand council of all the Khalifas, the Agas, the Kaids, and chiefs of tribes. Three hundred assembled. Standing up before them, he took for the text of his oration, an article in the Koran, where Mohammed blames his brother-in-law Ali for having slain five hundred infidels after they had surrendered.

Applying this passage to the case of French soldiers taken prisoners, Abdel Kader vehemently insisted that they should no more be wantonly killed or mutilated. After eloquently showing, to the conviction of his audience, the inhumanity, the disgrace, the inutility of such actions, he demanded a decree to the effect, that every Frenchman, whether taken in action or otherwise, should be looked upon as a prisoner, and be treated with every consideration, until an opportunity presented itself for effecting his exchange.

The proposition of the Sultan received the approval of the majority of the council. The following decree was at once drawn up; and hundreds of copies were made, and forthwith distributed throughout all the towns, villages, and tents, in the Sultan’s dominions:—

“Be it ordained, that every Arab who shall bring in a French soldier, or a Christian, safe and sound, shall receive a reward, amounting to eight dollars for a male, and ten dollars for a female.

“Every Arab who has a Frenchman or a Christian in his possession, is held responsible for his good treatment. He is hereby commanded, on pain of the severest punishment, to conduct his prisoner, without delay, either to the nearest Khalifa, or before the Sultan himself. On doing this, he shall receive the promised reward.

“In the case of any prisoner complaining of the slightest ill-treatment, the Arab, his captor, shall lose all claims for reward.”

Once—and once only—after the publication of this order, it was reported to Abdel Kader that one of his regulars had been taken up with a Frenchman’s head in his hands. Starting with indignation, he instantly wrote to the Khalifa of the district where the case had occurred, commanding him to bring the culprit forthwith to head-quarters. He resolved to make a severe example. His regular regiments, both infantry and cavalry, and the contingents of irregular cavalry, of the tribes nearest by, were all convoked to a grand parade.

On the day, and at the hour fixed, all were under arms. Abdel Kader stood surrounded by his civil and military chiefs. The culprit was led forth; the head was placed before the Sultan.

“Prisoner,” said Abdel Kader, “was the man to whom this head belonged dead or alive, before you cut it off?”

“Dead.”

“Then you shall receive two hundred and fifty blows, for having disobeyed my orders. This punishment shall teach you that, as a dead man can be no man’s enemy, it is cowardly and brutal to mutilate him.”

The soldier was laid down, and received his award. He rose, and thinking his punishment over, was moving off.

“Stay a little,” said the Sultan, “I have another question to ask you. While you were cutting off the man’s head, where was your musket?”

“I had laid it on the ground.”

“Two hundred and fifty blows more, then, for having abandoned your arms on the field.”

After this second punishment, the unhappy regular could hardly stand on his feet. Some men stepped forth to carry him away.

“Not in such a hurry,” said the Sultan, again; “I have another question yet to ask. After you had cut off the man’s head, how did you manage to carry your musket and the head at the same time?”

“I held my musket in one hand, and the head in the other.”

“That is to say, you carried your musket in such a manner that you could not have made use of it. Give him two hundred and fifty blows more.”

Such unbending severity had its due effect. The French had no longer occasion to dread falling alive into the hands of the Arabs. When taken they were regularly and carefully conducted to the station of the nearest Khalifa. On arriving there, they were subjected to a strict but mild examination, and were simply asked to what corps they had belonged, when and how they had been taken, and whether they had been well treated by their captors.

After their declarations had been duly taken down and registered, they were forwarded to certain _depôts_ appointed for the reception of prisoners. The men were generally sent to Taza, or Tekedemt. The women, invariably to the Smala, to be cared for and superintended by the Sultan’s mother.

Not satisfied with ameliorating the condition of his own prisoners of war, Abdel Kader was extremely desirous of pushing the principle of humanity still further, by establishing a regular exchange of prisoners on both sides. Often and earnestly did he plead with the French generals, that the precedent so auspiciously established and carried into effect at Sidi Khalifa, might be extended and confirmed as a system. But he pleaded in vain.

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