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French conquest of Algeria: A Visual History

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Visual history of a war

A slap with a fly-whisk, a landing in 1830, Abd el-Kader's 15-year resistance, and 70 years of colonial war that emptied villages and filled them with settlers.

Fought
1830 to 1903
Duration
73 years
Dates
1830 to 1903
Deaths
Estimates of 500,000 to over 1 million Algerians from war, famine and disease; about 100,000 French
France
Armee d'Afrique; Bugeaud, Lamoriciere, Saint-Arnaud, Randon
Algerians
Regency of Algiers; Emir Abd el-Kader; Ahmad Bey of Constantine; Kabyle tribes; Mokrani revolt of 1871
Result
French Algeria; settler colony of 1 million Europeans

The French conquest of Algeria began with the capture of Algiers in July 1830, ostensibly over the Dey's insult to the French consul, and continued for decades. Emir Abd el-Kader united western Algeria against the French from 1832, forcing treaties and then fighting Marshal Bugeaud's 100,000-strong army of mobile columns and scorched earth until his surrender in December 1847. Kabylia was conquered in 1857 and the great revolt of 1871 crushed with land confiscation; the Sahara was subdued by 1903. Massacres, famine and disease reduced Algeria's Muslim population by perhaps a third, while European settlers took the best land. Algeria was declared French territory in 1848 and stayed so until 1962.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is French conquest of Algeria. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

1200130014001500160017001800190020002100French conquest of Algeria (1830 to 1903)Open: Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire (1299 to 1922)Open: Spanish EmpireSpanish Empire (1492 to 1976)Open: French Revolutionary and Napoleonic WarsFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792 to 1815)Open: Second French colonial empireSecond French colonial empire (1830 to 1980)Open: Franco-Prussian WarFranco-Prussian War (1870 to 1871)Open: Mahdist WarMahdist War (1881 to 1899)Open: Italian EmpireItalian Empire (1882 to 1947)Open: Italo-Senussi warsItalo-Senussi wars (1911 to 1932)Open: Nazi GermanyNazi Germany (1933 to 1945)Open: Algerian WarAlgerian War (1954 to 1962)Open: Algerian Civil WarAlgerian Civil War (1991 to 2002)

Populations of Algeria

01125225033754500Muslims 1830: 30003000Muslims 1830Muslims 1872: 21002100Muslims 1872Muslims 1906: 45004500Muslims 1906Europeans 1841: 3737Europeans 1841Europeans 1872: 245245Europeans 1872Europeans 1906: 680680Europeans 1906thousands (approximate)

Timeline of the French conquest of Algeria

  1. 1827
    The fly-whisk incident
  2. 1830
    Algiers captured5 July.
  3. 1832
    Abd el-Kader proclaimed emir
  4. 1837
    Treaty of Tafna; Constantine stormed
  5. 1841
    Bugeaud governor; total war
  6. 1847
    Abd el-Kader surrenders
  7. 1857
    Kabylia conquered
  8. 1871
    Mokrani revolt crushed
  9. 1903
    Sahara pacified

1830

Charles X, seeking glory to save his regime, used a 1827 incident in which the Dey struck the consul with a fly-whisk to justify invasion. A fleet landed 37,000 men at Sidi Ferruch on 14 June 1830; Algiers surrendered on 5 July. Charles fell in the July Revolution weeks later; the new regime kept Algeria without a policy, taking coastal towns and provoking resistance.

Abd el-Kader and Bugeaud

Abd el-Kader, a 24-year-old marabout's son from Mascara, was proclaimed emir in 1832 and built a state with a regular army, taxes and capital at Tagdempt. The Treaty of Tafna (1837) recognised his rule over most of the interior; war resumed in 1839. Bugeaud, governor from 1841, used razzias, burning crops and orchards, and in 1845 Pelissier's troops asphyxiated hundreds of Ouled Riah tribespeople in caves. Abd el-Kader's roving capital was captured at Taguin in 1843; he fought from Morocco until its defeat at Isly (1844) and surrendered in December 1847. Imprisoned in France despite promises, he was freed by Napoleon III and died in Damascus, honoured for protecting Christians in 1860.

Kabylia, 1871 and the Sahara

Randon's campaigns took the Kabyle mountains in 1857. Napoleon III toyed with an 'Arab kingdom' but settlers won out; after France's defeat by Prussia, the 1871 Mokrani revolt of 250 tribes was crushed and 450,000 hectares confiscated for settlers from Alsace-Lorraine. Famine in 1866-1868 had killed hundreds of thousands. Colonisation companies, the 1881 Code de l'indigenat and the Saharan columns of the 1890s completed the conquest by 1903; a million Europeans lived in an Algeria legally part of France.

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8 surprising things about the French conquest of Algeria

  1. France invaded to distract from domestic crisis; the regime that ordered it fell three weeks after Algiers surrendered.
  2. Abd el-Kader was honoured by the US (Elkader, Iowa is named after him) and by France for saving Christians in Damascus in 1860.
  3. Bugeaud's motto was 'ense et aratro', by sword and plough; his columns burned harvests to starve the tribes.
  4. The enfumades, smoking tribes to death in caves, were denounced in the French parliament and continued anyway.
  5. The Foreign Legion was founded in 1831 specifically for service in Algeria and had its base at Sidi Bel Abbes until 1962.
  6. Tocqueville visited Algeria and endorsed the burning of crops as a regrettable necessity.
  7. Algeria's departments were legally as French as Normandy from 1848, which is why decolonisation was so traumatic.
  8. The 1871 revolt's leader Mokrani was killed in battle; his followers were deported to New Caledonia alongside Communards.

Sources

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