Part 7
Clauzel, who had left Africa almost in disgrace in 1831, was sent back in full command in 1835. He alone of the French generals had exhibited any military qualities. His grandiose projects have been justified by events. His main plan consisted in occupying Mascara and Tlemçen in the west, Medea and Miliana in the centre, and Constantine in the east. Of Tlemçen and Constantine he said, “Si vous n’occupez pas ces deux Gibraltar de la Régence d’Alger, vous n’en serez jamais les maîtres.” His failure was due to his attempt to effect these objects with the inadequate means with which he was supplied. He commenced by advancing against Abd-el-Kader, who retired before him. Having occupied Mascara and Tlemçen, he returned to Algiers, whereupon Tlemçen was promptly besieged by the Arabs. At this point the great Frenchman, destined to overthrow the Arab power and to conquer Algeria, appeared on the scene. General Bugeaud was sent to command in the west. He was personally opposed to conquest, and regarded French intervention in Algeria not only as having been badly conducted, but as initially a mistake. These views did not prevent him from putting his hand to the plough. He began by revolutionizing the methods of warfare; in spite of the opposition of his officers, he dispensed with heavy trains of baggage and artillery, lightened the loads of the soldiers, and carried their provisions on mules. Attacking Abd-el-Kader at La Sikkah he inflicted on him a signal defeat, his native auxiliaries pursuing the flying enemy with fury and slaughtering them in great numbers. Bugeaud then returned to France.
Meantime Clauzel, having had some success in the neighbourhood of Algiers, attacked Constantine, but was ignominiously repulsed, and was recalled. The city fell the following year to General Valée. In 1837 Bugeaud was sent back to Oran, with instructions to make terms with Abd-el-Kader on the basis of surrendering to him the province of Oran in consideration of his recognizing the sovereignty of France and paying tribute. The two leaders met and negotiated the treaty of the Tafna. It was all in the Arab’s favour; the tribute fixed was nominal, the sovereignty question ignored. In native eyes Abd-el-Kader became a veritable monarch, his territory was assured to him and he had leisure to gather his forces for a further struggle. We must suppose either that Bugeaud’s private preferences carried him away, or that the situation in the west was too desperate to warrant his insisting on better terms. For two years peace reigned, but in 1839 Abd-el-Kader proclaimed a holy war. Arabs and Khabyles invaded the Metidja and burnt the farms of the French colonists. Hostilities lasted for two years with no decisive result. In October, 1840, the Governor-General, Valée, was recalled, and Bugeaud was sent out in supreme command to inaugurate a new policy.
[Illustration: EVENING PRAYER]
The half-hearted efforts of ten years were at an end, _l’occupation restreinte_ was to give way to _l’occupation totale_. France set herself at all cost to occupy effectively the whole territory of Algeria up to the desert. She had missed her chance at first. “Occasion,” says Bacon, “(as it is in the common verse), turneth a bald Noddle, after she hath presented her locks in Front and no hold taken.” The unwise temporizing with Abd-el-Kader had enormously increased the difficulties of the position. But there was to be no more dalliance.
Bugeaud was one of those born leaders to whom the exigencies of the occasion are more important than military tradition. To seek the enemy’s force and to destroy it was for him a leading principle, as it has been for our great naval commanders. He abolished the garrisons of his predecessors, and substituted for them mobile columns. He believed, and proved, that the manœuvres of such columns were far more effective, even for the protection of colonized districts, than the occupation of definite points. In the main he relied on infantry, supported by a light and very mobile artillery. The _a priori_ view that cavalry is necessary to meet a mounted enemy found in his operations no support, however useful it may be for surprises and pursuit. Can it be that the famous telegram to our Colonies at the beginning of the last South African War,—“infantry preferred,”—was due to a statesman’s study of the memoirs and correspondence of Marshal Bugeaud?
He even conceived the idea of mounted infantry, mounting his men on mules or camels as occasion served. He prohibited the use of waggons for baggage and provisions, and dared, in spite of the indignant protests of his cavalry officers, to use the troop horses to carry rice and corn. Sprung himself from the ranks,—he had fought as a corporal of the guard at Austerlitz,—he understood the soldier’s needs, powers and limitations; and was in turn trusted and beloved,—_le père Bugeaud_ he was affectionately called. Such was the man who was to win for France her African empire.
[Illustration: CARAVAN OF A CAÏD]
It is unnecessary to recount the details of the long duel between Bugeaud and Abd-el-Kader. Step by step the Arab leader was driven from the fertile regions to the high plateaux, and with every reverse his authority over the tribesmen waned, even if his own resource and resolution never failed. A severe blow was dealt in the spring of 1843. Abd-el-Kader had established a vast caravan, known as the _smalah_, comprising the families of his forces, their flocks and herds, and a crowd of non-combatants who abandoned their homes and followed his fortunes rather than submit to the foreigner. It was, as Bugeaud said, “la capitale ambulante de l’empire arabe.” It was reputed to contain 40,000 persons, defended by 5000 combatants. The young Duc d’Aumale, son of Louis Philippe, was charged with its capture. Having located its position at Taguine, he attacked it with a force of 600 horse, without waiting for his infantry, consisting of 1300 men. The suddenness of his onslaught broke down all resistance; the defenders fled, leaving much booty and many thousand prisoners in the hands of the French. For some months more Abd-el-Kader continued to make a futile resistance, but finally fled to Morocco. In July Bugeaud received the fitting acknowledgment of his success, and was named Marshal of France.
France now came into conflict with the Empire of Morocco,—the commencement of a page of history still unfinished. The Sultan, perhaps against his own inclinations, was compelled by the sympathies of his people to espouse the cause of the Arab leader. His son led an army of 40,000 men to the frontier. Bugeaud, with a force of 8000, met him on the banks of the Isly. The night before the battle Bugeaud addressed his officers, who were assembled at “un punch” to welcome some comrades arrived from France: “With our little army of 6500 bayonets and 1500 horses I am going to attack the army of the Prince of Morocco, which amounts, according to my information, to 60,000 horsemen. I would the number were double, or thrice as great, for the greater would be its disorder and disaster. I have an army; he has only a mob. And I will explain to you my order of attack. I give my little force the form of a wild boar’s head. The right tusk is Lamoricière; the left tusk, Bedeau; the snout is Pelissier; and I am between the ears. Who can stop our penetrating power? Ah! my friends, we will cut our way into the Moorish army as a knife cuts butter.”
This new eve of Austerlitz was followed on the morrow by an overwhelming victory. By midday the Moors were in flight and their camp of a thousand tents, with all their artillery, was captured. The bombardment of Tangier and Mogador by the Prince de Joinville assisted to bring the Sultan to his senses, and peace was concluded by the Treaty of Tangier.
But the troubles of the French were not over. In 1845 the indomitable Abd-el-Kader, having recruited 2000 men in the Sahara, appeared in the west and raised the whole province of Oran; farms were burnt, crops destroyed and bridges thrown down. Bugeaud, recalled from France, set himself to make an end. He collected a force of 100,000 men, divided into eighteen columns. A mighty hunt began. Abd-el-Kader was everywhere in turn. As ubiquitous as De Wet, he was now in the Tell, now in the high plateaux, now endeavouring to raise the mountaineers of Khabylia. But the end was inevitable. The tribesmen whom, having raised, he left to their chastisement, grew weary of the process. “You are like the gad-fly,” they said to him, “which arouses the bull. When you have done your work of irritation you disappear, and it is we who bear the brunt of the blows.” After a fruitless effort to obtain fresh aid from Morocco, he was captured on the frontier by Lamoricière and sent to France. He was subsequently allowed to retire to Syria, where he lived on a pension paid by the French Government till his death in 1883. He left a name venerated by his countrymen and respected by his conquerors. The French have had to face serious insurrections since, but no native leader has arisen to repeat the exploits or rival the fame of Abd-el-Kader.
Bugeaud was more than a great soldier; he was a statesman and a colonizer. He chose as his motto, “Ense et aratro.” He held that, except as a forerunner to the plough, it was useless to draw the sword. The military and civil control of a subject population, such as the English rule in India, and in recent days the _pax Gallica_ of the Sahara, may be an excellent undertaking for a people of super-abundant energies; for Bugeaud the conquest of Algeria was only a necessary preliminary to its organization as a French colony. “La conquête,” he said in his first proclamation, “serait stérile sans la colonisation. Je serai donc colonisateur ardent, car j’attache moins de gloire à vaincre dans les combats qu’à fonder quelque chose d’utile et de durable.”
The French invasion brought in its train a number of civilians. They were perhaps rather adventurers than of the stuff from which successful colonists are made. And the task before them was a stern one. The breaking of the soil was the first difficulty. It was covered with brushwood and dwarf palms, and its clearance involved much painful toil. There were no roads; even in the Metidja, close to Algiers, no means of communication but the mule paths; and no bridges. It is said that the journey to Blidah, which you may now cover in an hour or two, took four days. The country was most insecure; troops of bandits continually descended on the cultivated plains and robbed and murdered the colonists. Perhaps the greatest trouble of all was the prevalence of fever, especially in the Metidja. “The cemeteries,” said a general, “are populated faster than the villages.” Later the spread of cultivation diminished its virulence, and the use of quinine provided a remedy. It is said that absinthe was used by French soldiers as a febrifuge,[4] and that they took back to their homes a habit which has become so widespread. A treatise might be written on the influence of war on fashions in drink. The introduction of champagne into England is said to be due to the English officers who had discovered its virtues in Paris at the time of Bonaparte’s downfall.
Footnote 4:
See “Notes and Queries,” February 25th and March 4th, 1911.
The Holy War of 1839 had extinguished the feeble flicker of French colonization. The colonists were removed to Algiers for safety; and the Arabs pillaged and burnt their farms. The land reverted to barbarism. Bugeaud set himself to repair this damage, and to place colonization on a firmer basis. His idea was that the state should prepare the way by granting land under certain conditions of military service, that it should make careful selection among applicants for grants, and should provide funds for preliminary works,—roads, wells and farm-buildings. This system was partially carried out, and has been justified by success. In spite of many troubles and setbacks, a constantly increasing area has been brought under cultivation. In 1854 the cultivation of cereals occupied about two million acres; in 1861 it had risen to five millions; in 1885 to seven millions. Since that date the total has not sensibly increased, but methods have improved and the yield is greater. It is said that on the whole agriculture in Algeria is more progressive than in France. And as he traverses Algeria’s interminable cornfields, the traveller may be disposed to render homage to the great soldier who, personally averse from conquest, drew the sword to establish peace, and strove to bring plenty in her train.
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_VI—TLEMÇEN THE HOLY_
Western Algeria—Sidi Bel Abbès—The Foreign Legion—A city of learning—Its inhabitants—The Mosque of Aboul Hassan—Mansoura—Its story—Sidi Bou Medine—Oran—Spanish immigrants.
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“A city dreaming of her ancient pride Amid the orchards on her mountain-side; Do you sleep sound, O saint that shares her fame, While stranger horsemen through her portals ride?”
Far to the west, beyond Oran, and close to the frontiers of Morocco, lies a hill city, once the seat of empire and of learning, but now sunk to the condition of a provincial town. Yet Tlemçen has occupied so high a position in the Mohammedan world, and the reputation of its existing monuments is so widespread, that the enterprising traveller will desire to visit it. The distance from Algiers is great, some 800 miles there and back, and as there is little of interest on the road, a journey by motor-car is not inviting. It is perhaps better to make use of the excellent train service between Algiers and Oran. If you leave Algiers at nine p.m., you may change about six a.m. at a junction a little short of Oran and reach Tlemçen about eleven. Or you may go on to Oran and hire a motor-car for the remaining 110 miles, which it will cover faster than the train does. In any case it is a tiresome journey. The road and the rail alike rise through a series of great plains divided by rocky steps, and chiefly devoted to corn-growing. The country is very bare and very uninteresting. There are few trees. It is said to have been once well wooded, but, although the Arab will take care of a tree near his house or his mosque, he has no regard for trees in general. So countless generations of browsing goats have made an end of the woods. One cannot but think that more attention to re-afforesting would meet with its reward.
Here, as elsewhere in Algeria, both in the plain and on the mountain side, the traveller will notice a number of square whitewashed buildings, surmounted by a cupola. They are known by the name of _koubba_, and are generally the tomb of a marabout or saint, and serve as objects of pilgrimage and much local veneration.
At Sidi Bel Abbès, a town of 25,000 inhabitants, about half of whom are Spaniards, are the head-quarters of the famous Foreign Legion. The very name of this corps stirs memories of forlorn hopes and dare-devil enterprises. The inimitable Ouida, whose disregard of the grammatical niceties of her own and other tongues was a generation ago the delight of undergraduates; who could say of her high-born hero that he ignored the proud motto of his haughty race, _Pro patria et rege_, and acted on the principle, _Pro ego_; Ouida has pictured for us after her own fashion, in “Under Two Flags,” the life of a foreign adventurer in the French service during the earlier days of the occupation. The picture, if imaginative in details, is full of life, and it is no doubt true that many broken men of gentle birth and upbringing found in the campaigns on the verge of the Sahara an outlet for energies for which civilization had no use. To-day the Legion is composed largely of Alsatians, Germans and Poles, and is celebrated for its band. But it is still to the fore when stern work is on foot. The situation of Sidi Bel Abbès renders it very convenient in the event of trouble with Morocco, which is constantly recurring. The town and its environs are an agreeable exception to the surrounding country in being pleasantly wooded. The olive trees are most carefully pruned, all the centre branches being cut out, and the outer ones trained to form a cup. This system admits light and air to the fruit, and facilitates the gathering of the crop.
Within a few miles of Tlemçen the scenery becomes more bold. The train climbs on to and encircles a rugged mountain range, traverses a great ravine, down which roars a graceful cascade, and emerges from a short tunnel into the noise and hubbub of Tlemçen station. The high road takes another course. It skirts the base of the rocky hills, and boldly ascends direct to the town, offering pleasant views of its walls and minarets. This is the habit of roads and railroads in many lands; the road approaches boldly to a frontal attack; the railroad creeps in stealthily or remains diffidently outside. So does the traveller by rail too often miss the beauty of the incoming.
The Arab horsemen who in the seventh century of our era rode through North Africa and carried the crescent into Europe were the élite of the race. Not only did they and their sons and those to whom they taught their faith and language and made like unto themselves conquer kingdoms and found great cities, promote commerce and achieve enormous material prosperity, but under their rule were produced works of art worthy to be ranked with the best. It is perhaps lucky that progress in these respects was accompanied, as it is generally accompanied, by a decline in martial prowess, or Western Europe might to-day be tied fast in the chains of Koran, and the women of London and Paris be veiled as was Mahomet’s wife. Among the greatest of Mohammedan cities from the eleventh century to the fifteenth Tlemçen stood high. It was peopled rather by Berbers than by Arabs of pure blood; but, at any rate, they spoke the Arab tongue, held the Arab faith and represented Arab culture at its highest excellence. In spite of the continual stress of war, it was enriched with noble buildings; it became a kind of university of Arab learning for North Africa; and it acquired the reputation and sanctity of a holy city from the selection of a neighbouring village as his last resting-place by a great Mohammedan saint.
[Illustration: TLEMÇEN: THE MINARET OF AGADIR]
At the period of its greatness Tlemçen was a large and populous city, containing 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. The enceinte constructed by the French encloses a much smaller area than the old walls, of which at least two series can be traced. The present town has about 30,000 inhabitants, for the most part Arab or Jew. It does a considerable trade, especially in olive oil; but it has lost its position as the terminus of the caravan routes from the south, since the construction of the Saharan railways; it is cheaper to unload the caravans at the southern stations, and forward the goods to Oran by rail. Apart from the mosques the streets present little of interest. It is said that the French found the town almost in ruins; to-day it is a shabby fifth-rate French town. The inevitable boulevard has been constructed, and even where the old houses remain they are hidden behind a hideous modern front. The old palace of the bey has unhappily been turned into a barrack. The commercial value of antiquities as an attraction to tourists was not realized in time; it is hardly understood now. Tlemçen occupies an important strategic position, close to the Moroccan frontier, and is garrisoned by French troops. At the Hôtel de France, a somewhat ramshackle but not uncomfortable hostelry, with very obliging hosts, breakfast many officers of the garrison. The variety of uniform is great; not less great the variety of human types:—from the fair, and apparently frail, young exquisite, whose physique suggests rather the counting-house than the Sahara, to the grizzled veteran of many campaigns.
Yet the native inhabitants lend colour and interest to the mean streets. The Arabs of the better class wear a dark blue overcoat and hood, which shows off their proportions to great advantage. The women are very closely veiled, only exhibiting one eye. The children, especially the little girls not yet come to the age of veiling, are cheerful and pretty, their rosy cheeks bearing witness to the cold and bracing qualities of winter at this elevation. The Jewesses affect bright colours; and red is the colour of their mourning. An occasional stranger of fierce aspect and unusual dress attracts your attention, and your guide murmurs “Marocain.”
Some handicrafts survive in Tlemçen. The rubbishy trinkets dear to the Arab woman and the Christian tourist are laboriously turned out by Jews in the street of the goldsmiths. It is something to know that they are not made in Austria. Here and there you will catch a glimpse of an old Moor bending over a carpet loom. A good deal of leatherwork is done, and there is a brisk business in harness and saddlery. Tlemçen is no longer the terminus of the railway which runs to the frontier, but many frontiersmen come here to trade.
It is in vain to look in Tlemçen, as in other towns of Algeria, for the pure-bred Arab. Those who pass by the name are the result of a continual mixture with the indigenous races; they are Berberized Arabs or Arabized Berbers. But in many ways they compare favourably with their compatriots elsewhere. Tlemçen has preserved some of its traditions as a city of learning. Even to-day it contains a large number of educated Mussulmans and a few savants. You may see here, as often you may see in Cairo and the cities of the East, a tradesman seated in his little shop poring over an Arab text. In Algeria generally the standard of education among the natives is very low; only a small fraction of one per cent can read and write. The religion of the Tlemçen Arabs is naturally of a somewhat higher type than that of those who, knowing nothing of the law and the prophets, are content with the observance of fast days and a cult of saints mixed with all sorts of survivals of fetishism. The Arabs of Tlemçen are said to eschew fanaticism, as becomes men of learning, to regard those who are not of their faith less with hate than with pity, as having missed the true way of salvation; an attitude not uncommon in other lands. But their religion is incrusted with intense superstition. They live in constant terror of the influence of evil spirits, the Djinns, to which are attributed almost all human ills. A madman especially is said to be possessed of evil spirits, and he cannot be cured till they are cast out of him. This fear of evil spirits influences every action of their daily lives; it is the chief stimulus to devotion, for the Djinns are kept not away save by prayer and fasting.