Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/407

ALGERIA. iards with the assistance of a Turkish army, and established a military despotism sustained by piracy. which lasted until the French conquest. Khair-ed-Din placed the country under the suzerainty of the Turkish Sultan. The Emperor Charles V., in 1541, led a great expedition against this daring corsair, but met with disaster. In 1600 the soldiery of Algiers obtained from the Turkish Sultan the privilege of setting up an officer, called the Dey, who was to share the authority with the Turkish Pasha. The history of Algiers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is a part of the history of the Barbary pirates, and of the fruitless efforts of the Christian powers to suppress them. Spanish, French, Knglish, and Dutch were equally unsuccessful. Early in the eighteenth century the Dey Ali Baba effected the virtual emancipation of the country from the dominion of Constantinople. He banished the Turkish Pasha, who had heretofore represented the Sultan, persuaded the latter to leave the power solely in his hands, and paid no more tribute.

Algeria was now ruled by a military oligarchy, at the head of which stood the Dey, and after him the powerful Turkish militia, recruited from Constantinople and Smyrna. Besides these, there was a divan or Council of State, chosen from the sixty principal civil functionaries. The internal history of the country henceforth presents nothing but a bloody series of seraglio revolutions caused by the Janissaries, who permitted few of the deys to die a natural death. Algeria continued to defy the greater Christian powers, and to enforce tribute from the lesser. A final Spanish attack, made on a formidable scale in 1775, was as unfortunate as those that had preceded. During the French Revolution and the time of the Empire, its aggressions were much diminished, in consequence of the presence of powerful fleets in the Mediterranean Sea; but at the close of the Napoleonic wars they were recommenced vigorously. The first substantial rebuke was administered by a small United States squadron, commanded by the younger Decatur, which defeated an Algerine squadron off Cartagena, June 20, 1815, and compelled the Dey to acknowledge the inviolability of the American flag. About the same time. Admiral Lord Exmouth, with a strong English and Dutch fleet, bombarded the capital, and compelled the Dey to conclude a treaty (1816), by which all Christian slaves were released without ransom, and a promise was given that both piracy and Christian slavery should cease forever. The pledges were not kept. As early as 1817, Algerine pirates ventured as far as the North Sea, and seized all ships in their course not belonging to any of the Powers that sent them tribute, as was done by Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Naples, Tuscany, and Sardinia. Treaties were of no avail. The Spanish, the Italian, and in particular the German shipping suffered severely. In 1817 the Dey Ali greatly curtailed the power of the Janissaries. His successor, Hussein, by his rash conduct, brought on the conflict with France, which broke the Moslem power in Algeria and made it a French province. In addition to the standing grievances against Algeria, there was a dispute regarding the payment of a debt incurred by the French Government to two Jewish merchants of Algiers at the time of the expedition to Egypt. This matter had long been pending in the French Courts, and as the Dey was a creditor of these Jews, he took a personal interest in the matter, and wrote to the King of France, who did not reply. At a reception of the consuls, he taxed the French consul with this, and when the latter replied that "a King of France could not condescend to correspond with a Dey of Algiers." Hussein angrily struck him.

This high crime against the dignity of nations brought the retribution which had not followed years of barbarous piracy. In 1830 the Dey and the Turks were expelled by a French fleet and a strong army under Bourmont. The excesses of the French soldiers awoke the resentment of the native population, who regarded all restraints as removed when their Turkish masters were driven out. For seventeen years the Arabs maintained a vigorous resistance to the French, and after them the Kabyles, the native population of the original Berber stock, still continued the struggle in a desultory manner. The drastic measures of the French military government did not tend to pacify the people, whose antagonism was inflamed by race hatred and religious fanaticism. For many years the French commanders were men trained in the Napoleonic school, such as Bourraont, Clausel, and Bugeaud; and meanwhile a new set of younger officers, like Changarnier and Cavaignac, who were to become known under the Second Empire, were trained in the severe school of Algerian service. Bourmont was succeeded by Clausel, Berthezène, and the Duke of Rovigo, all of whom failed to master the situation. Abd-el-Kader, a young Arab emir of marked abilities and dauntless spirit, had meanwhile brought together and organized the scattered forces of rebellion, and was secretly assisted by the Emperor of Morocco. A treaty was concluded with him during the provisional administration of General Voirol, and an attempt was made to promote the material interests of the country. Toward the end of 1834 there was an effort to organize the administration on a permanent civil basis, and General Drouet d'Erlon was made Governor-General, but a renewed outbreak by Abd-el-Kader led to his recall and that of the military commandant. Clausel, now a Marshal, was sent back to the Regency in 1835, but had to be reënforced by Bugeaud, who made a peace with the Arab chieftain, May 20, 1837, by which Abd-el-Kader recognized the sovereignty of France, but received in return several valuable provinces. In February, 1837, Damrémont succeeded Clausel as Governor-General, and after the former's death, at the storming of Constantine, General Valée was appointed to the difficult post. In October, 1839, Abd-el-Kader violated his last treaty on an insignificant pretext, and a general attack was made upon the French positions. Bugeaud supplanted Valée in 1841, and began an inexorable and unscrupulous campaign against the Arabs with an army augmented to nearly 100,000 men. Abd-el-Kader kept up a determined fight against odds until December, 1847, when he surrendered to General Lamoricière. (See .) An irregular warfare against French authority was then taken up by the Kabyles, thwarting for many years all attempts to establish civil government.

From 1858 to 1860 the military government of Algeria was superseded by the institution of a special ministerial department for Algeria and the colonies, which was first of all intrusted to Prince Napoleon. In December, 1860, however, a military government was reinstituted, and