The Arabs: A History

Although the French had defeated the Turkish garrison at Algiers, this victory did not give them control over the country at large. So long as the French confined their ambitions to the main coastal towns, they were unlikely to encounter much organized resistance in Algeria. European powers had long held strategic ports on the North African coast. The French occupation of Algiers in July 1830 and of Oran in January 1831 was not so different from the Spanish position in their presidios in Ceuta and Melilla (which remain Spanish possessions today). But the French were not satisfied with holding the main towns. They hoped to colonize the fertile coastal plain with French settlers in a policy known as “restrained occupation.” It was a policy that inevitably would alienate the indigenous people of Algeria. The Algerian population was made up of fiercely independent Arabs and Berbers, a non-Arab ethnic community that converted to Islam after the seventh-century Islamic conquests. With their own language and customs, the Berber population is spread across North Africa, particularly in Algeria and Morocco. The Arabs and Berbers had preserved their independence from the deys of Algiers and resisted every attempt by the Turkish garrison to tax them or impose Ottoman rule outside the major cities of Algiers, Constantine, and Oran. Thus, they shed no tears over the fall of the Regency. Even so, the Berbers and Arabs in the Algerian countryside were no more amenable to the French than they had been to Turkish rule. As the French began to colonize Algeria’s coastal plains, the local tribes organized a resistance movement, begi

Abd al-Qadir’s forces descended on the vulnerable French agricultural colonies in the Mitija Plain, located east of Algiers. Provoking widespread panic, they killed and wounded hundreds of settlers, putting their homes to the torch. The government in Paris was faced with a clear choice: withdraw, or commit to a complete occupation of Algeria. It opted for the latter and dispatched General Bugeaud at the head of a massive campaign force to achieve the final “submission” of the Algerian resistance to French rule. Bugeaud faced a daunting task in his attempt to achieve total victory in Algeria. The Algerians were well organized and highly motivated. Abd al-Qadir had organized his government in Algeria into eight provinces, each headed by a governor whose administration reached down to the tribal level. These governors were paid regular salaries and were charged with maintaining law and order and collecting taxes for the state. Judges were appointed to enforce Islamic law. Government was unobtrusive, operating within the constraints of Islamic law, which encouraged farmers and tribesmen to pay their taxes. The Algerian government raised enough funds from taxes to support a volunteer army that proved highly effective in the field. By Abd al-Qadir’s own estimate, his forces numbered 8,000 regular infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 240 artillerymen with 20 ca