|
Algeria
Abd al Qadir
The French faced other opposition as well in the area. The superior
of a religious brotherhood, Muhyi ad Din, who had spent time in
Ottoman jails for opposing the dey's rule, launched attacks against
the French and their makhzen allies at Oran in 1832.
In the same year, tribal elders chose Muhyi ad Din's son, twenty-five-year-old
Abd al Qadir, to take his place leading the jihad. Abd al Qadir,
who was recognized as amir al muminin (commander of the
faithful), quickly gained the support of tribes throughout Algeria.
A devout and austere marabout, he was also a cunning political
leader and a resourceful warrior. From his capital in Tlemcen,
Abd al Qadir set about building a territorial Muslim state based
on the communities of the interior but drawing its strength from
the tribes and religious brotherhoods. By 1839 he controlled more
than two-thirds of Algeria. His government maintained an army
and a bureaucracy, collected taxes, supported education, undertook
public works, and established agricultural and manufacturing cooperatives
to stimulate economic activity.
The French in Algiers viewed with concern the success of a Muslim
government and the rapid growth of a viable territorial state
that barred the extension of European settlement. Abd al Qadir
fought running battles across Algeria with French forces, which
included units of the Foreign Legion, organized in 1831 for Algerian
service. Although his forces were defeated by the French under
General Thomas Bugeaud in 1836, Abd al Qadir negotiated a favorable
peace treaty the next year. The treaty gained conditional recognition
for Abd al Qadir's regime by defining the territory under its
control and salvaged his prestige among the tribes just as the
shaykhs were about to desert him. To provoke new hostilities,
the French deliberately broke the treaty in 1839 by occupying
Constantine. Abd al Qadir took up the holy war again, destroyed
the French settlements on the Mitidja Plain, and at one point
advanced to the outskirts of Algiers itself. He struck where the
French were weakest and retreated when they advanced against him
in greater strength. The government moved from camp to camp with
the amir and his army. Gradually, however, superior French resources
and manpower and the defection of tribal chieftains took their
toll. Reinforcements poured into Algeria after 1840 until Bugeaud
had at his disposal 108,000 men, one-third of the French army.
Bugeaud's strategy was to destroy Abd al Qadir's bases, then to
starve the population by destroying its means of subsistence--crops,
orchards, and herds. On several occasions, French troops burned
or asphyxiated noncombatants hiding from the terror in caves.
One by one, the amir's strongholds fell to the French, and many
of his ablest commanders were killed or captured so that by 1843
the Muslim state had collapsed. Abd al Qadir took refuge with
his ally, the sultan of Morocco, Abd ar Rahman II, and launched
raids into Algeria. However, Abd al Qadir was obliged to surrender
to the commander of Oran Province, General Louis de Lamoricière,
at the end of 1847.
Abd al Qadir was promised safe conduct to Egypt or Palestine
if his followers laid down their arms and kept the peace. He accepted
these conditions, but the minister of war--who years earlier as
general in Algeria had been badly defeated by Abd al Qadir--had
him consigned to prison in France. In 1852 Louis Napoleon, the
president of the Second Republic who would soon establish the
Second Empire as Napoleon III, freed Abd al Qadir and gave him
a pension of 150,000 francs. In 1855 Abd al Qadir moved from the
Byrsa, the citadel area of Carthage, to Damascus. There in 1860
Abd al Qadir intervened to save the lives of an estimated 12,000
Christians, including the French consul and staff, during a massacre
instigated by local Ottoman officials. The French government,
in appreciation, conferred on him the Grand Cordon of the Legion
of Honor, and additional honors followed from a number of other
European governments. Declining all invitations to return to public
life, he devoted himself to scholarly pursuits and charity until
his death in Damascus in 1883.
Abd al Qadir is recognized and venerated as the first hero of
Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white
standard was adopted by the Algerian liberation movement during
the War of Independence and became the national flag of independent
Algeria. The Algerian government brought his remains back to Algeria
to be interred with much ceremony on July 5, 1966, the fourth
anniversary of independence and the 136th anniversary of the French
conquest. A mosque bearing his name has been constructed as a
national shrine in Constantine.
Data as of December 1993
|
