French Colonial Counter-Insurgency: General Bugeaud and the Conquest of Algeria, 1840-47 THORAL, Marie-Cecile <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7763-8518> Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/15073/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version THORAL, Marie-Cecile (2015). French Colonial Counter-Insurgency: General Bugeaud and the Conquest of Algeria, 1840-47. British Journal of Military History, 1 (2), 8-27. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2015 French Colonial Counter-Insurgency: General Bugeaud and the Conquest of Algeria, 1840-47 MARIE-CECILE THORAL Sheffield Hallam University Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT This article explores the practice of counter-insurgency carried out by the French under General Bugeaud during the war of conquest of Algeria. By analysing different dimensions of colonial counter-insurgency in Algeria, it will demonstrate that, far from being an incomplete form of counter- insurgency characterised by irregular warfare tactics and racialised brutality of a 'population-centric approach', French counter-insurgency in Algeria under Bugeaud represented the very beginning of a more modern, complete and inclusive form of counter-insurgency that combined force and conciliation. Introduction This article will investigate the method of colonial warfare used by the French during the war of conquest of Algeria, with a focus on the method used under General Bugeaud from 1840 until the surrender of Abd el Kader in 1847. It will argue against the consensus view of a sharp contrast between Bugeaud’s purely coercive answer to colonial insurgency and Lyautey’s more inclusive, progressive and more modern theory and practice of counter-insurgency with its emphasis on the use of economic development to try and win over the local population. On 14 June 1830, following a plan of invasion of Algeria first conceived by Napoleon in 1808, a French expeditionary force of about 37,000 men landed 20 miles west of Algiers, at Siddi Ferruch and defeated the 43,000 men of the Dey of Algier’s army two days later. After a brief and successful campaign ending with the surrender of the Dey, the ruler of the regency of Algiers which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, the expeditionary force entered Algiers on 5 July. It then proceeded with the military conquest and agricultural colonisation of the northern coastal area of Algeria (the ‘Tell’). However, defeating the opposition of the Algerian people proved much less straightforward. This was only the start of a long, protracted, desultory and divisive war of conquest which lasted from 1830 to 1847. The French faced, as early as 1832, a concerted opposition in the west of Algeria, a holy war or jihad led by the son of the head of an Islamic brotherhood, 25 years old Emir (Prince) Abd el Kader, who called himself ‘the Commander of the Faithful’. 8 FRENCH COUNTER-INSURGENCY 1840-47 He quickly gained the support of numerous Arab tribes in western and central Algeria, formed a regular army of 10,000 to 20,000 men and started harassing the French army. After his defeat in one of the only conventional battles of the whole war, the battle of Sikkak on 6 June 1836 causing 1,000 Arab casualties and 50 French casualties, he resorted to exclusive ‘guerrilla style’ fighting: hit and run tactics, cutting transport supplies, and harassing the rear of the army and stranded soldiers. The first strategy adopted by the French in the face of this military opposition was one of containment and compromise: on 30 May 1837, the treaty of Tafna recognised Abd el Kader’s authority over the western Oran area and ceded him the control of a vast territory south of Algiers, deemed less useful than the coastal areas. However, this policy of limited occupation ultimately failed because it was widely criticised by public opinion in France, who saw it as ineffective (not allowing for large- scale European settlement) and yet extremely expensive (350 million French Francs for the first decade of occupation). After the launching by Abd el Kader, in 1839, of a series of raids on French settlers in the Mitidja plain, killing hundreds of unprotected civilians, the French shifted to ‘absolute war’ or ‘total control’ with the appointment of a new governor-general, General Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, in December 1840. A few decades after the French army confronted armed civilians and dispersed guerrilla bands during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (in the Vendée in 1794-5, and then in the south of Italy and in Spain under Napoleon) the war in Algeria was one of the first full-scale experiences of a coherent, organised colonial counter-insurgency supported by foreign aid to the insurgents, in this case provided by the Sultan of Morocco until 1844. It also started a process of theoretical thinking about the nature of colonial warfare and counter-insurgency tactics which informed several 19th century theories of imperial policing and colonial warfare. In one of the most famous and influential 19th century works on colonial warfare, Small Wars, Charles Callwell asserted that Bugeaud's tactics should be seen as a model of efficiency in counter-insurgency: 'The French operations in Algeria during many years of war will ever serve to illustrate what is the right way and the what is the wrong way of dealing with an antagonist who adopts the guerrilla mode of war'.1 In a chapter on French colonial warfare published in 1943, Jean Gottman presented Bugeaud as the founder of the French 'colonial school' of warfare, pointing to his influence on his successors in Algeria, Indochina and Morocco, Galliéni and Lyautey.2 1 Charles Callwell, Small wars. A tactical textbook for imperial soldiers, (1896, repr., London: Greenhill, 1990), p.128. 2 Jean Gottmann,'Bugeaud, Galliéni, Lyautey: the development of French colonial warfare', in Edward Earle ed., Makers of modern strategy: military thought from Machiavelli to Hitler, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), pp. 234-259, (p. 247). www.bjmh.org.uk 9 British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2015 More recently, Douglas Porch questioned the existence of such a French 'colonial school' but agreed upon the significance and influence of Bugeaud's theory and practice of colonial warfare.3 In a recent book on Galliéni and Lyautey, Michael Finch qualified this view by suggesting that the only distinctive and influential feature of Bugeaud's theory and practice lay in 'a tendency towards brutal practice'.4 The method of colonial counter-insurgency devised in the second half of the 19th century by Galliéni and Lyautey, with its emphasis on political action and economic development (the 'oil spot' tactic), has indeed been presented by most historians as the very beginning of modern counter-insurgency and as a sharp departure from the violent practice of Bugeaud. Douglas Porch qualified this commonly accepted dichotomy between a dark and a bright side of counter-insurgency by emphasising the influence of Bugeaud on his successors and by indicating that Galliéni and Lyautey did not completely rule out the use of force either, but he agreed nonetheless with the widespread presentation of the distinctiveness of Bugeaud's strategy and tactics being rooted in the exclusive use of force and violence.5 This was echoed by many other historians such as William Gallois, who reduced the whole strategy and practice of French counter-insurgency in early colonial Algeria to 'a widespread system of violence'. Similarly, Sylvie Thénault, Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Jacques Frémeaux, Kamel Kateb and Benjamin Brower, while acknowledging that trade between France and Algeria had drawn Algerians into a market-based economy, agreed that: 'There was nothing progressive [about Bugeaud’s thinking] resulting in a great deal of violence – death, social and cultural destruction – that typified the experience of French colonialism in Algeria'.6 Historians of 20th century Algeria such as Martin Evans have held similar opinions.7 A correction to this commonly accepted view was provided first by Barnett Singer and John Langdon, and more recently by Thomas Rid. Barnett Singer and John Langdon, while emphasising the prevalence of violence in Bugeaud's practice of 3 Douglas Porch, 'Bugeaud, Gallieni, Lyautey: the development of French colonial warfare', in Peter Paret (ed.), Makers of modern strategy: from Machiavelli to the nuclear age, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986),p.377. 4 Michael Finch, A progressive occupation? The Gallieni-Lyautey Method and Colonial Pacification in Tonkin and Madagascar, 1885-1900, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.52-53. 5 Porch, 'Bugeaud, Gallieni, Lyautey', pp.377-378. 6 William Gallois, A history of violence in the early Algerian colony, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), pp.2-3; Sylvie Thénault, Violence ordinaire dans l'Algérie coloniale: Camps, internements, assignations à résidence, (Paris: Odile Jacob 2012), pp.127-128; Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser, exterminer: sur la guerre et l'état colonial, (Paris: Fayard, 2005), pp.138-146; Jacques Frémeaux, La France et l'Algérie en guerre: 1830-1870, 1954-1962, (Paris: Economica, 2002), p.70. Kamel Kateb, Européens, « indigènes » et juifs en Algérie (1830- 1962), (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), pp.40-46; Benjamin Brower, A desert named Peace: the violence of France’s empire in the Algerian Sahara, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp.25- 26. 7 Martin Evans, Algeria: France's undeclared war, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p.13, p.17. 10 FRENCH COUNTER-INSURGENCY 1840-47 counter-insurgency, admitted that he 'was a more complex and significant man than often conceded' and that he also sponsored economic development through the resettlement of Arab tribes, a policy of agricultural development and incentives to enhance trade with the Algerian population and to develop infrastructures.8 Thomas Rid hinted at the role of the Arab Bureaux (Bureaux arabes) in providing the French with intelligence on the tribes to be rewarded and the tribes to be crushed and in contributing to the economic and cultural development of the country.9 While the 'dark side' of French colonial counter-insurgency and the undeniable extreme level of violence on both sides during this conflict have been widely documented in the existing historiography, the policy of cooperation with indigenous Algerians has so far received less attention from historians. This article aims at analysing different dimensions of colonial counter-insurgency in Algeria. First it considers the policy of cooperation and the 'civilizing mission', then the 'war among (or against) the people' and the targeting of civilians, and lastly the adaptation of tactics to this new kind of warfare. By making use of primary sources written by the main actors in the field this article will consider the justification for the methods that were being employed so as to assess the nature of counter-insurgency that was being fought. It will then be possible to more clearly identify whether it was an incomplete form of counter-insurgency characterised by irregular warfare tactics and racialised brutality of a 'population-centric approach' or the beginning of a more complete and inclusive form of counter-insurgency combining force and conciliation.10 Assimilation and conciliation: trying to rally the population through peaceful means Bugeaud understood the role of a policy of cooperation, economic development and association in securing the support of the Algerian population and establishing French rule in Algeria. He stated that the key to the French domination of Algeria was in showing the Arabs the economic benefits made by being part of French colonial Algeria, The native Americans were defeated by alcohol, the Arabs can be subjugated through trade; the use of force can [momentarily] defeat them but it cannot lead to lasting domination. Only trade can attach the Algerian population to 8 Barnett Singer and John Langdon, Cultured force: makers and defenders of the French colonial empire, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), pp.70-72. 9 Thomas Rid, 'Razzia. A Turning Point in Modern Strategy', Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 21, Iss. 4, (2009), pp.617-635 (p. 632). 10 Douglas Porch, Counter-insurgency: exposing the myths of the new way of war, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.26, p.51. www.bjmh.org.uk 11 British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2015 the French (…) Each Arab Algerian who gets rich is, for the French, one ally gained and one enemy less.11 But the benefits of collaboration went beyond the Bureaux arabes and trade to include two aspects of the French input less frequently studied: medicine and religion. As Edward Berenson noted, ‘Lyautey’s eventual status as a colonial hero suggests (…) that colonialism could command widespread interest in France (…) (if) it seemed to take place in a peaceful, civilized way.’12 Lyautey’ theory of counter- insurgency included humanitarian measures: state building, economic aid, and the use of public health to win over the local population. As Robin Bidwell noted about Lyautey's 'oil spot' tactic in Morocco: 'whenever the French advanced in Morocco they opened an infirmary, often within days of their arrival (…) Lyautey told his officers that in each outpost, he would create an indigenous infirmary aimed at the free medical care of the natives.’13 In doing so, he was merely following in the footsteps of his Algerian predecessors. Even in Bugeaud’s time, counter-insurgency in Algeria had included a humanitarian and medical dimension. General de Létang actually targeted medical care as one of the key areas for a policy of cooperation or conciliation aiming at winning over the local population.14 The first attempt at using medicine for peaceful cross-cultural encounters between the French and the Algerian Arabs was undertaken by the chief surgeon of the Zouaves, Giscard, on his arrival in Algeria in 1832. In 1833 he set up an infirmary for the care of Algerian Arabs in Deli Ibrahim. In the first ten months, 973 Arabs received some medical treatment.15 In a report to the Parliament on the state of Algeria in 1842, Rozey, the president of the Colonial Society of Algiers, suggested that medical care for the native Algerian population was one of the most powerful means of pacification and reported that the infirmary set up by Giscard 'has never been unattended' since 1833 and was used by a large number of Arabs, 'including some Arab women'.16 Giscard was the first to introduce anti-smallpox vaccination 11 Bugeaud, L’Algérie : des moyens d’utiliser et de conserver cette conquête, (Paris: Dentu, 1842), pp.110-111. 12 Edward Berenson, Heroes of empire: five charismatic men and the conquest of Africa, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), p.229. 13 Robin Bidwell, Morocco under colonial rule: French administration of tribal areas: 1912-1956, (London: Frank Cass, 1973), p.258. 14 Georges de Létang, Des moyens d'assurer la domination française en Algérie, (Paris: Anselin, 1840), pp.48- 49. 15 Frédéric-Gaétan de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Note sur l'administration d'Alger, (Paris, Impr. de A. Henry, 1835), pp.47-48. 16 A. G. Rozey, Mémoire aux chambres législatives: Esquisse rapide et historique sur l'administration de l'Algérie depuis 1830, (Paris, 1842), p.162. 12 FRENCH COUNTER-INSURGENCY 1840-47 among the Algerian Arabs, first among the Zouaves and then among the tribes pursued by the French flying columns. His example was, after 1837, followed by several other army surgeons: 'at Bone, Bougie, Mostaghanem, Oran, vaccination took root at the same time as civilisation thanks to the dedication of the army surgeons who spread it everywhere [the French troops] waged war.'17 Giscard and a few other French army surgeons such as Pouzin (who treated some Arab patients at the market of Bouffarik in 1835, then outside the pacified area) not only provided medical care to the Arabs of pacified tribes but also went into enemy territory, sometimes quite far away from the French military bases.18 In 1833-1834, Giscard, escorted by only two Algerian cavalrymen, provided medical care to the Arabs of fifteen villages in enemy territory. Numerous Arabs from the town of Medeha, then unpacified and in enemy territory (30 lieues or 145 kilometres from the last French outposts) frequently visited his infirmary at Deli Ibrahim.19 Emile Bertherand, the former director of the Muslim hospital of Algiers, highlighted the significance of medicine as a means of pacification and cross-cultural encounter, 'The French toubibs [Arabic word for surgeon] who practiced their art among Algerian natives have always been rewarded with a very effusive, demonstrative hospitality (…) How much progress could be done in the moral conquest of the Algerian natives if [French authorities] want to reap the benefits of those good dispositions by providing them with adequate medical care (…) Each of the natives [after being] cured [by a French surgeon] will [spread the news to his tribe and] become one of the links of the long chain of sympathy that will gradually link up the winners and the losers.'20 The role of medicine as a tool of pacification was well understood by some army officers serving in Algeria under Bugeaud. For example, General de Létang advocated the replication, 'on a larger scale, of what was done in the province of Algiers by the chief surgeon of the Zouaves units, Giscard, first by dispatching army surgeons to all tribes who submitted to the French, and then by setting up permanent French hospitals for native Algerians next to the French colonised area.21 The very first French hospital entirely dedicated to the free medical care of the Algerian Arabs (not, as Giscard's infirmary, primarily aimed at Zouaves and informally 17 Emile Bertherand, Médecine et hygiène des arabes, (Paris: Bailliere, 1855), p.440. 18 Emile Bertherand, 'Reconnaissance des Arabes envers les médecins', Bulletin de l'Algérie, (1856), p.31. 19 Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Note, pp.47-8. 20 Bertherand, 'Reconnaissance’, pp. 29-31. 21 Létang, Des moyens d'assurer, pp.48-51. It would be interesting to know, through Arabic sources, the perception and point of view of the Algerian population on this dimension of a more peaceful policy of cooperation but the lack of such sources unfortunately does not allow for that. www.bjmh.org.uk 13 British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2015 accepting non-Zouave Algerian Arabs) was set up in 1834 by Pouzin in the Metidja plain, 12 lieues or 58 kilometres from Algiers, well into enemy territory, beyond the last French outpost. News of its opening spread by word of mouth and soon a large number of Arabs who did not have access to medical care in their tribes visited the hospital. As a French member of Parliament, Frédéric de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt observed one year later, the foundation of that hospital was ‘part of a bigger project, that of creating [welfare] institutions preceding the march of the French army in Africa, so that the natives would not be rallied to France only through the force of weapons but also through the benefits of civilisation.’22 Another dimension of that attempted 'moral conquest' of Algeria lay in a religious policy adapted to a war in which Algerian Muslims made a religious and not primarily nationalist war against Christian invaders. Some therefore, such as Léon Roches and Engineering Captain Antoine- Eugène Carette, suggested that the key to French success in Algeria consisted in implementing in full the freedom of religion which had been granted to Muslim Algerians in theory in the Treaty of the Tafna (article 5) but was not always strictly implemented (some mosques being desecrated and turned into secular buildings in the 1830s).23 The yearly pilgrimage to Mecca was officially authorised (forbidden only in years when there was a cholera epidemic in Arabia, as in 1841). Some Frenchmen went even further, suggesting that a way to rally Muslim Algerians to French rule would involve not only authorising but also facilitating the travel of a number of poor and carefully selected Algerians for free transportation to Mecca. This idea was taken up by the French authorities and they dispatched a French ship to Algeria in 1842 and 1843 for the use of Algerian pilgrims.24 Silvain Toussaint Bourlet d’Amboise, a French agricultural reformer and a Muslim convert who was a former ‘hodja’ (Muslim religious teacher) in the Ottoman empire, went even further and suggested establishing mosques in the largest French cities, Paris, Marseille and Lyon, in order to attract wealthy Arabs who, instead of going to Mecca or to big fairs in Germany (Leipzig) would go to France and later spread pro- French attitudes in Algeria.25 22 Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Note, pp.52-53. 23 Dominique Borne and Benoit Falaize (eds), Religions et colonisation, XVIe-XXe siècle: Afrique, Amérique, Asie, Océanie, (Paris: Editions Ouvrières, 2009), pp.143-144. 24 Antoine-Eugène Carette, Recherches sur la géographie et le commerce de l'Algérie méridionale,(Paris, 1844), pp.175-176. 25 Silvain Bourlet d’Amboise, Mémoire consultatif présenté au commerce français, (Paris, Charles Place,1837), p.4. 14 FRENCH COUNTER-INSURGENCY 1840-47 This ambitious project was not implemented at the time, but a more discreet and focused suggestion of using Islam and leading Arab Islamic scholars to help in pacifying Algeria was suggested to Bugeaud by one of his close collaborators, Léon Roches the chief staff interpreter. In 1841, Roches argued that most Arab tribes perceived the economic benefits of rallying to the French but were prevented from doing so because Abd el Kader had proclaimed that all Muslims who accepted life under Christian rule without resistance would suffer eternally. According to Roches those same verses from the Koran used by Abd el Kader could be used to show the limitations of holy war. After Muslim people exhausted the possibilities of resisting Christian aggression as long and as fiercely as they could, when resistance is no longer tenable and possible, they must cease the fighting and recognise the conqueror’s rule, provided the latter granted them freedom of religion. Knowing that several religious leaders feared the long-lasting consequences of the war in Algeria and wanted to reach an agreement with the French, Roche set off in July 1841 on a mission to gather the most influential and famous Islamic ulama (Islamic scholars) in a meeting in Mecca (far from Abd el Kader's influence) to issue a fatwa (an Islamic legal pronouncement issued by one or several Islamic scholars), authorising the Algerian Muslims to live under French rule.26 He succeeded in having a fatwa drafted along those lines in January 1842 by the ulamas of Kairouan and of Cairo, with the support of the emir of Mecca. The fatwa was later approved and signed by the ulamas of Baghdad, Medina, Damas, and Mecca, giving it a pan-Islamic seal of legitimacy.27 The influence of this fatwa on Algerian people is hard to assess as, by the time it was issued, Abd el Kader had lost many of his fortifications and many tribes had submitted to the French. French policy was more complex than mere razzias, even though the conquest did also include some degree of violence against Algerian civilians. Targeting civilians The "guerrilla" dimension of the war, the support provided by many tribes to Abd el Kader in the early stages of the war, the near absence of real battles and the elusiveness of the enemy showed the limitations of a strictly military type of war focused on the enemy combatants. Because Abd el Kader had the support of a large part of the population, the French army brought war to the civilian population, waging war among and against the people. 26 Léon Roches, Trente-deux ans à travers l’Islam, vol. 1, (Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1884), pp.440-441. 27 Ibid., vol. 2, pp.130-131. www.bjmh.org.uk 15 British Journal for Military History, Volume 1, Issue 2, February 2015 In many, if not all cases of irregular warfare, civilians are at the forefront, both as actors and as targets. Bugeaud's justification for the targeting of civilians actually rested on the assertion that, for the Algerians, war was total and that the insurgents received the active support of civilians among the tribes working with Abd el Kader. Even though some milder means were simultaneously employed to try and win over the population, some army officers argued that counter-insurgency in Algeria would be unsuccessful if only conciliatory, non-military measures were employed. Force was seen as the only way to impose respect and obedience among the proud and warlike peoples like the Arabs. General de Létang (commander of the province of Oran in 1836-7) thus devoted a full chapter (chapter 4) of his book on the means of controlling Algeria to 'the use of force as a means of pacification'. This chapter starts with this telling assertion: ‘Conciliatory measures will not be sufficient to rally the Arabs to France. Force will have to be used for this purpose.’28 The consensus opinion among French army officers was that the focus on conciliation would be seen (and exploited) as a sign of weakness by the Arabs. The tribes who refused the French offer of peace should therefore be ruthlessly hit so as to impress the other tribes and threaten them into submission. Bugeaud thus launched a scorched earth policy aimed primarily at threatening and demoralising Arab and Kabyle opponents, and, secondarily, at securing supplies for the army (living off the land). Flying columns were instructed to launch raids on rebellious tribes, borrowing from the pre-Arabic tradition of desert or nomadic warfare: the gazhias or razzias (used by Bedouins against enemy tribes). Those razzias, or raids, consisted in seizing livestock, goods and food supplies, sometimes burning down douars (villages of tents or huts), destroying fruit trees and harvests, and taking prisoners and cattle back to the nearest French camp. The razzias were in part punitive, used in retaliation for the violence used by Abd el Kader’s army on French prisoners and on unarmed French settlers and to avenge French losses (settlers or prisoners beheaded). However, their main aim was strategic and they were therefore conceived as a particular tactic of war: to attack with overwhelming force unprepared and ill defended herdsmen or settlers and, by hitting at the tribes’ main sources of revenue, to force them into submission. The difference between European warfare and colonial warfare, and the focus on pillage and raids in colonial warfare, was seen as the direct result of the different stages of economic development and organisation between different civilisations. General Bugeaud thus justified the use of razzias in Algeria along those lines in a speech on 15 January 1840, ‘In Europe, we don’t just make war against armies, we make war against interests. If we won against adversarial enemies, we penetrate the 28 Létang, Des moyens d'assurer, p.61. 16