the suburbs and run away. Sometimes they cut off supplies by ceasing to bring provisions to the market, but the French were not to be turned aside by such tactics.
At Algiers the energies of the French were devoted to protecting themselves against the incursions of the Hajutas. This was sufficient to absorb the attention of the general-in-chief, who left the guardianship of the east and west to the initiative of the generals established at Bona and Oran. At Bona, where General Monk d’Uzer was in command till 1836, things went fairly well. At once firm and conciliatory, he had been able to attach to the French cause the natives whom the cruelty of Ahmed, bey of Constantine, had alienated. The occupation of Bougie by General Camille Alphonse Trezel in October 1833 gave the French a footing at another point of this eastern province. But at Oran, where General Desmichels had succeeded General P. F. X. Boyer in the spring of 1833, their situation was much less favourable. There the French had found a redoubtable adversary in the young Abd-el-Kader, who had been proclaimed amir at Mascara in 1832.
A man of rare intelligence, a fearless horseman and an eloquent orator, Abd-el-Kader had acquired a great reputation by his piety. He reunited under his sway the tribes that had hitherto been divided, and infused a unique spirit into their resistance. For fifteen years he held the French Abd-el-
Kader.in check, treating on terms of equality with their government. Moreover, the treaty which General Desmichels had the weakness to sign with him on the 24th of February 1834 greatly improved his position. In pursuance of this treaty, French officers were to represent their country at the court of the amir; while the amir on his part was represented in the three French coast towns, Oran, Arzeu and Mostaganem, by vakils who immediately began to act as masters of the natives. Such was the situation at the period when, the French having at last resolved to keep Algeria, the ordinance of the 22nd of July 1834 laid down the bases of the political and administrative organization of the “French possessions in the north of Africa,” at the head of which was placed a governor-general. But this date (July 22, 1834), very important from a judicial point of view, is much less so from a historical point of view. The position of the first governor-general, Jean Baptiste Drouet d’Erlon (1765–1844), remained fully as precarious as that of his predecessor. During this time the power of Abd-el-Kader increased. Master of the province of Oran, he crossed the Shelif at the appeal of the natives, the people flocking to witness his progress as that of an emperor. He entered Miliana and Medea, where he installed beys of his own choice. All the western part of Algeria belonged to him. General Trezel, who had succeeded General Desmichels at Oran, resolved to march against the amir, but was defeated on the banks of the Macta (June 1835). This defeat shook public opinion. Drouet d’Erlon was recalled and replaced by Marshal Clausel.
In short, five years after the capitulation of Algiers, the French dominion extended as yet over only six coast towns. Clausel, who returned with the same colonial ambitions as in 1830, resolved to conquer the interior of the country. He marched against the amir, defeated him and entered Mascara. Then he proceeded to deliver the inhabitants of Tlemcen, who had been attacked by Abd-el-Kader, and there he left a garrison. Turning towards the east, Clausel organized at Bona the first expedition against Constantine. This failed, and the only result of it was the occupation of Guelma. Clausel was recalled and replaced by General C. M. D. Damrémont (February 1837). The task of maintaining the position of France was then divided between Thomas Robert Bugeaud (1784–1849), acting independently in the west, and Damrémont, who directed all his efforts towards the east. By the signature of the celebrated treaty of the Tafna (June 1, 1837), Bugeaud made peace with Abd-el-Kader. In return for a vague recognition of the sovereignty of France in Africa, this treaty gave up to the amir the whole of western Algeria. France reserved to herself only Oran and its environs, Mazagran, Algiers and the Metija; she gave up Tlemcen and the Titeri beylik. This was a triumph for Abd-el-Kader, who regarded the peace as but a truce which would allow him time to gain strength to resume the war under more favourable conditions.
Damrémont, on his part, directed a second expedition on Constantine. The town was taken, but Damrémont was killed (October 1837). Marshal Sylvain Charles Valée (1773–1846), who replaced him, founded Philippeville to serve as a seaport for the region of Constantine, occupied Jijelli, and at the head of the expeditionary column returned from Constantine to Algiers by the interior, passing through Setif and les Portes de fer. Abd-el-Kader maintained that the French had thus violated the treaty of the Tafna, and began the war again. For two years his power had been increasing. A whole hierarchy of khalifas, aghas and caids obeyed him. He had a regular army of 8000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, without counting 50,000 goums (bodies of Arab horsemen) brought by the khalifas. He was well furnished with war material, possessing magazines and arsenals in the heart of the Tell. He had attacked and subjugated all who were not willing to recognize his authority. Under his influence old rivalries were effaced; at his voice all the tribes joined in the holy war. On the 18th of November 1839 he sent his declaration of war to Marshal Valée, but the impatient Hajutas had already devastated the Metija. Marshal Valée marched against Abd-el-Kader, and at first gained some successes: the French occupied Cherchel, Medea and Miliana. But at the end of 1840 Valée was recalled and replaced by Bugeaud, who adopted totally different tactics. The system of Marshal Valée had been the defensive: he multiplied the fortified posts in order to draw the enemy to a spot chosen beforehand. Bugeaud resolutely adopted the offensive, reduced the weight carried by the soldiers in order to increase the mobility of his troops, and carried the war into the province of Oran, from which Abd-el-Kader drew his principal resources. One after the other, all the magazines of the amir—those at Takdempt, Boghar, Taza, Saida and Sebdu—were taken and destroyed. In the spring of 1843 the duc d’Aumale had an opportunity of surprising the smala (camp) of Abd-el-Kader near Taguin. This was a serious blow for the amir, whose determination to continue the contest was, however, as strong as ever. He took refuge in Morocco, and induced that power to declare war on the French on the pretext that they would not give up the frontier post of Lalla-Maghnia. Morocco was soon vanquished. While Francois, prince de Joinville, was bombarding Tangier and Mogador, Bugeaud gained the victory of the Isly (August 1844). Morocco signed a treaty of peace at Tangier on the 10th of September 1844.
The struggle, however, was not ended. Islam made a supreme effort in Algeria. The Dahra and the Warsenis rose at the voice of a fanatic called Bu-Maza (“the goat man”), a Khuan of the order of the Mouley-Taïeb. Elsewhere other “masters of the hour,” false Bu-Mazas, rose. Abd-el-Kader reappeared in Algeria, which he overran with a rapidity which baffled all pursuit. He beat the French at Sidi Brahim, raided the tribes of the Tell Oranais which had abandoned him, penetrated as far as the borders of the Metija, and reached the Jurjura, where he endeavoured to rouse the Kabyles. But his eloquence offended the narrow and cramped particularism of those little democratic cities, deaf to the sentiment of the common interest. From that time he played a losing game. He returned toward the west, penetrating farther and farther to the south. Badly received by the great aristocratic family of the Walid-sidi-Sheikh, he re-entered Morocco, but the emperor of that country, dreading his influence and fearing difficulties with the French, drove him out. This was the end. On the 23rd of December 1847 Abd-el-Kader surrendered to General Lamoricière in the plains of Sidi-Brahim. His adversary, Bugeaud, was there no longer. Having failed to persuade the French government to adopt his plans of military colonization, he had retired in June 1847 and had been replaced by the duc d’Aumale.
The surrender of Abd-el-Kader marks the end of the period of the conquest. It is true that Great Kabylia had to be subdued only ten years later, and that terrible insurrections still had to
