UNPUBLISHED ARTICLES OF MARX &
ENGELS ON THE CONQUEST OF ALGERIA
BY FRENCH IMPERIALISM
WE are publishing three articles by Marx and Engels concerning the conquest of Algeria by France. These formed part of articles devised by the two founders of Marxism for the NEW AMERICAN ENCYCLOPAEDIA, a popular encyclopaedia edited in the USA by Charles A. Dana and George Ripley, a work in which Marx and Engels collaborated and which was published in 1858.
In actual fact it was Marx alone who was commissioned to draw up a series of articles for Vols. 1-4 of the New American Encyclopaedia which appeared between 1858 and 1865. However, in order to help his friend and allow him to devote the maximum amount of time to the preparation of CAPITAL (Marx had just completed Grund'risse der Kritik der politischen Okonomie and was starting work on Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie, the introduction to which was to become in large measure the classical formulation of the theory of historical materialism), Engels took it upon himself to write several articles, in particular those dealing with military questions. In general he sent much of the material to Marx in order to assist with the articles contributed by the latter.
Although this work was quickly finished and was to some extent compiled by the examination of other reference books, numerous passages reflect the depth of thought of Marx and Engels and their unerring judgement on a large number of different subjects. The article on the Army written by Engels for Vol. 1 of the New American Encyclopaedia constitutes a thorough synopsis of a universal military history and of the influence that social and economic history exercised on the evolution of the military art.
The articles in the New American Encyclopaedia are unsigned. Identification of some of these has given rise to controversy, particularly in view of the fact that the compilers of the Encyclopaedia did not hesitate to modify, add or omit portions of the articles that they solicited, including those by Marx and Engels.
Controversy exists particularly with regard to the article Abdel Kadr. Maximilien Rubel (Bibliographie des Oevres de Karl
At are later achanged been he Libraries Marcel Riviere et Cie.,
two friends seem to confirm this paternity. However, the review Voprossi Istorii KPSS (Questions on the History of the CPSU, 1958 p. 192) contests this and attributes it to W. Hamfris.
The new edition of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels by the Institute of Marxism - Leninism —an edition faithfully followed by the Gesammelte Werke K. Marx-Fr. Engels in the German language by Dietz-Verlag in East Berlin-reproduces in Vol. 14, articles by Marx and Engels published in the New American Encyclopaedia. The article on Algeria is said to have appeared in Vol. I of the New American Encyclopaedia; the Bugeaud article in Vol. II. The Abd el Kadr article was not part of this edition.
Nevertheless we feel it is just as useful to reproduce here the Abd el Kadr article, especially as it expresses in an impressive way the admiration felt by the founders of Marxism for the Algerian resistance to the French conquest, admiration expressed moreover in the articles on Algeria and Bugeaud de la Piconnerie.
As far as the article on Algeria is concerned we are printing only the second The first sectio relating the French conquest.
which deals with geography and Algerian history before the Free conglopa dias of ahis period, and contains comments on the "barbarous piracy and the "anarchistic demands" which hardly conform to the spirit with which Marx treated the conflict between the empires of Europe and those of Asia and Africa in past centuries.
29 ALGERIA - From the first occupation of Algeria by the French to the present time, the unhappy country has been the arena of unceasing bloodshed, rapine and violence. Each town, large and small, has been conquered in detail at an immense sacrifice of life. The Arab and Kabyle tribes, to whom the independence is precious, and hatred of foreign domination a principle dearer than life itself, have been crushed and broken by the terrible razzias in which dwellings and property are burnt and destroyed, standing crops cut down, and the miserable wretches who remain massacred, or subjected to all the horrors of lust and brutality. This barbarous system of warfare has been persisted in by the French against all the dictates of humanity, civilization, and Christianity. It is alleged in extenuation, that the Kabyles are ferocious, addicted to murder, torturing their prisoners, and that with savages lenity is a mistake.
The policy of a civilized government resorting to the lex talionis may well be doubted. And judging of the tree by its fruits, after an expenditure of probably $ 100,000,000 and a sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, all that can be said of Algeria is that it is a school of war for French generals and soldiers, in which all the French officers who won laurels in the Crimean war received • their military training and education.
As an attempt at colonisation, the numbers of Europeans compared with the natives show its present almost total tallure; and this is one of the most fertile countries of the world, the ancient granary of Italy, within 20 hours of France, where security of life and property alike from military friends and savage enemies alone are wanted. Whether the failure is attributable to an inherent defect in the French character, which makes them unfit for emigration, or to injudicious local administration, it is not within our province to discuss.
Every important town, Constantine, Bona, Bas carried by storm with all the accen Arzew, Mortaganem, panying horrors. The natives submitted with an ill grace to their Turkish rulers, who had at least the merit of being co-religionists;
but they found no advantage in the so-called civilization of the new government, against Which, beside, they had all the repugnance of religious fanaticism. Each governor came but to renew the severities of his predecessor; proclamations announced the most gracious intentions, but the army of occupation, the military movements, terrible cruelties practised on both sides, all refuted the professions of peace and good-will.
In 1831, Baron Pichon had been appointed civil intendant, and he endeavoured organise a system of civil administration which should move with the military government, but the check which his measures would have placed on the governor-inchief offended Savary, duc de Rovigo, Napoleon's ancient minister of police, and on his representation Pichon was recalled. Under Savary, Algeria was made the exile of all those whose political or social misconduct had brought them under the lash of the law; and a foreign legion, the soldiers of which were forbidden to enter the cities, was introduced into Algeria.
In 1833, a petition was presented to the chamber of deputies, stating, 'for 3 years we have suffered every possible act of injustice. Whenever complaints are preferred to the authorities, they are only answered by new atrocities, particularly directed against those by whom the complants were brought forward. On that account no one dares to move, for which reason there are no signatures to this petition. O my lords, we beseech you in the name of humanity, to relieve us from this crushing tyranny: to ransom us from the bonds of slavery. If the land is to be under martial law, if there is to be no civil power, we are undone; there will never be peace for us." This petition led to a commission of inquiry, the consequence of which was the establishment of a civil administration.
After the death of Savary, under the ad interim rule of Gen. Voirol, some measures had been commenced calculated to allay the irritation; the draining of swamps, the improvement of roads, the organisation of a native militia. This, however was abandoned on the return of Marshal Clausel, under whom a first and most unfortunate expedition against Constantine was under-
taken. His government was so unsatisfactory, that a petition praying inquiry into its abuses, signed by 54 leading persons connected with the province, was forwarded to Paris in 1836. This led eventually to Clausel's resignation. The whole of Louis Phillippe's reign was occupied in attempts at colonization, which only resulted in land-jobbing operations; in military colonization, which was useless, as the cultivators were not safe away from the guns of their own block-houses; in attempts to settle the eastern part of Algeria, and to drive out Abd-el-Kader from Oran and the west.
The fall of that restless and intrepid chieftan so far pacified the country, that the great tribe of the Hamianes Garabas sent in their submission at once. On the revolution of 1848, Gen. Cavaignac was appointed to supersede the Duc d'Aumale in the governorship of the province, and he and the Prince de Joinville, who was also in Algeria, then retired. But the republic did not seem more fortunate than the monarchy in the administration of this province. Several governors succeeded each other during its brief existence. Colonists were sent out to till the lands, but they died off, or quitted in disgust.
In 1849, Gen. Pelissier marched against several tribes, and the villages of the Beni Sillem; their crops and all accessible property were burnt and destroyed as usual, because they refused tribute. In Zaab, a fertile district on the edge of the desert, great excitement having arisen in consequence of the preaching of a marabout, an expedition was despatched against them 1,200 strong, which they succeeded in defeating; and it was found that the revolt was wide-spread, and fomented by secret associations called the Sidi Abderrahman, whose principal object was the extirpation of the French. The rebels were not put down until an expedition under Generals Canrobert and Herbillon had been sent against them; and the seige of Zoatcha, an Arab town, proved that the natives had neither lost courage nor contracted affection for their invaders. The town resisted the efforts of the besiegers for 51 days, and was taken by storm at least. Little Kabylia did not give in its surrender till 1951, when Gen. St. Arnaud subdued it, and thereby established a line of communication between Philippeville and Constantine.
30
The French bulletins and French papers abound in statements of the peace and prosperity of Algeria. These are, however, a tribute to national vanity. The country is even now as unsettled in the interior as ever. The French supremacy is perfectly illusory, except on the coast and near the towns. The tribes still assert their independence and detestation of the French regime, the atrocious system of razzias has not been abandoned; for in the year 1857 a successful razzia was made by Marshal Randon on the villages and dwelling-places of the hitherto unsubdued Kabyles, in order to add their territory to French dominions. natives are still ruled with a rod of iron, and continual outbreaks uncertain tenure of the French occupation, and the hollowness of peace maintained by such means. Indeed, a trial which took place at Oran in August, 1857, in which Captain Doineau, the head of the Burzau Arabe, was proved guilty of murdering a prominent and wealthy native, revealed a habitual exercise of the most cruel and despotic power on the part of the French officials, even of subordinate rank, which justly attracted the attention of the world.
At present, the government is divided into the three provinces of Constantine on the east, Algeria in the centre, and Oran in the west. The country is under the control of a governor-general, who is also commanderin-chief, assisted by a secretary and civil intendant, and a council composed of the director of the interior, the naval commandant, the military intendant, and attorney-general, whose business firm the acts of the governor. The Conseil des contentieux at Algeria takes cognizance of civil and criminal offences. provinces where a civil administration has been organised have mayors, justices, and commissioners of police. The native tribes living under the Mohammedan religion still have their cadis: but between them a system of arbitration has been established, they are said to prefer, and an officer (L' avocat des Arabes) is especially charged with the duty of defending Arab interests before the French tribunals. Since the French occupation, it is stated that commerce has considerably increased. The imports are at about $ 22,000,000, the exports $ 3,000,000. The imports are cotton, woolen, and silk goods, grain and flour,
lime, and refined sugar the exports are el Kader, the most formidable of their rough coral, skins, wheat, oil, and wool, opponents, endeavoured to consolidate the soil than their own garrisons. In 1831 Abd 1833, and January 1934, Abd el Kader,
31 with other small matters.
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*
*
ABD EL KADER
Abd el Kader, an emir of the Bedouin tribe of Hashem Garabo, in the province of
Oran, and western part of Algeria, was descended from an ancient family of Marabouts, that could trace its origin as far back
* Out Maiden. He was born in 1807 near Mascara, and educated at tribes into an organised system of resistance. His elder brother had already fallen in conflict with the French, when he began to harass them at the head of his own and the neighbouring tribes, avoiding any thing like an engagement, and satisfied with surprising the outposts and cutting off convoys.
In the spring of 1932, General Boyer, commandant of Oran, made an ineffectual demonstration against Tlemen, Abd el Kader's stronghold. The emir was encouraged by this to commence more decided operations, and at the head of 5,000 a college for the study of theology and Bedouins lie ravaged the province of Oran, jurisprudence. His father, Mahiddeen, emir or prince of Mascara, enjoyed in his lifetime the highest repute for wisdom and sanctity, to such a degree indeed, that his house was an asylum for debtors and criminals. His influence gave rise to apprehensions in the Turkish governor of Oran, that he was projecting the subversion of the Turkish rule. To avoid the enmity of the bey, Mahiddeen made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He died in 1834, of poison administered to him by Ben Moossa, chief of the Moors of Tlemen.
Abd el Kader had accompanied his father to Mecca, and thereby gained his title of El Hadji (the Holy). He is said to have early manifested powers far beyond his age; he read and wrote Arabic with facility, and during his pilgrimage taught himself Italian, or more probably the lingua Franca.
even menaced the town itself, summoning the French to evacuate the terri-
The courage and daring he showed in this expedition, though unattended by any practical result, won him the admiration of the Arabs, and no less than thirtytwo of the tribes immediately declared for him, and he was elected chief of the believers in December 1832, when only 23 years of age. He was thus placed at the head of 12,000 warriors, with whom he blocked the city and intercepted all the communications.
In April 1833, General Desmichels, the successor of Boyer, made a sortie and cut to pieces a number of the Garabats. learning this disaster, he again advanced upon Oran, but without achieving any success; and on the 7th of May the French carried by assault the town of Arzew, one
1827 he visited Egypt, and spent some time of the posts which enabled the Arab chief in the court of Mehemet Ali, studying the reforms and the new system of that astute politician. His noble and prepossessing exterior, with his affability and simplicity of manners, won the affections of his countrymen, while the purity of his morals ensured their respect and esteem. He was the most accomplished of Arab cavaliers, a perfect man at arms, and the bravest of the brave.
The French occupation of Algeria met with little effective opposition from the Turks, but it aroused the fierce, independent spirit of the native tribes, and after shedding rivers of blood, and spending millions of treasure, the French held little more of the to keep up a communication by sea. These reverses did not, however, affect Abd el Kader's reputation with his countrymen. He garrisoned Tlemen, advanced against Mostaganem, a town in the possession of the Turks to the north-east of Arzew; but the French anticipated his movements, and seized Mosataganem.
General Desmichels now endeavoured to undermine Abd el Kader's power, and to induce the native tribes to acknowledge the supremacy of France. He succeeded in detaching the Smailas from Abd el Kader, a defection for which the chieftan afterwards took full vengeance. In December
chiefly through the desertion of his followers of Algeria, in which he threw all the blame ficatory epistle to Count d'Erlon, governor he was attacked by Abd el Kader and 10,000
32 met with serious reverses, and was compelled to conclude peace with the French. He stipulated to exchange prisoners and to protect all European travellers and residents; while the French on their part acknowledge him as an independent prince, and engaged to assist him in maintaining his authority over his own tribes,. while he, on the other hand, was not to interfere with those under French protection. Abd el Kader now occupied himself in the restoration of his influence among the tribes, which had been somewhat shaken by this ill success; he also endeavoured to introduce European discipline and tactics among his followers.
A powerful desert chief, Moosa el Sherif, was daring enough to measure arms with Abd el Kader, of whose power jealous. The emir seized upon his hostilities as a pretence for crossing the Sheliff, the boundary assigned him by the treaty, and soon chastised the insolence of his rival. This expedition confirmed his reputation, and several desert tribes gave in their allegiance, and acknowledged him as their sultan. He made use of his extended power to establish the security of public travelling, to reform the gross abuses of the courts of justice, and to assure the rights of property. In the hope of recruiting his finances, he granted to a Jew named Durand a monopoly of trade and commerce in his dominions, by which he gained an immediate revenue, and interfered with the supplies of the French settlers and garrisons.
The French government now took alarm, and recalling Desmichels, whose want of energy they disapproved, appointed General Trezel commandant of Oran, in his stead. An excuse for hostilities was not long
In 1835 the chiefs of the Smailas and of the Douars, who had placed themselves under French protection, besought Trezel's interference against Abd el Kader, who had insisted upon their renouncing the French alliance. General Trezel advanced with his troops towards Mascara. march he was surprised by Abd el Kader in the defile of Muley Ismael, and compelled to retire upon Arzew, having lost one gun, his baggage, and nearly 600 killed and wounded. Abd el Kader addressed a justiof the recent affair upon General Trezel. At the same time he sent messengers to all the tribes, pointing out the faithlessness and insolence of the French, and calling on them to rally round his standard for mutual protection.
Marshal Clausel was now sent to Algiers as governor, with instructions to crush Abd el Kader at one blow; who, on his part fully alive to all that was going on, was not slow to meet his enemies. He promulgated the most terrible denunciations against all who should be found siding with the French or supplying them with provisions; the consequence of which was, that the French garrisons and outposts were almost starved, and could not obtain food except by forays, in which friend and foe were treated alike. The emir mustered upwards of 50,000 men, and by his manoeuvres succeeded in postponing the French advance until the wet
It was not until November that the French arrived at Oran on their march against Mascara. Mostacanem and Arzew were strongly garrisoned, and Clausel advanced into the enemy's country with 13,000 men. After several days of constant fighting, he succeeded in reaching Mascara, on the 6th of December, and avenged himself on Abd el Kader by reducing it to a heap of ruins. This wretched exploit achieved, the French were obliged to retire again.
They next took Tlemen in January 1836, and garrisoned, it and then returned to Oran. But although they defeated the Kabyles in a battle, the indefatigable emir harassed their retreat, which they only effected after severe losses. This murderous and savage mode of warfare, which was nothing better than a system of forays, was without practical result to the French. As soon as the army had retired, the inhabitants of Tlemen rose upon the French garrison, their convoys were cut off, and General d'Arlanges, the second in command, was ordered to establish a fortified camp on the Tafna, for the purpose of covering Tlemen and keeping open the communications between that post and the districts favourable to the French. He advanced with 3,000 men by land, while another division of 4,000, was despatched by sea. When about five miles from Tlemen,
33 Arabs, and driven back on his fortified camp, where he was shut up and compelled to remain until relieved by Bugeaud at the head of 4,000 men.
Abd el Kader disseminated reports of the ruin of the French cause, and by these means roused the Arab tribes to such a pitch of fanaticism, that they rose en masse against their detested invaders. Bugeaud now assumed the command. His uncompromising character infused new spirit into the French army. Abd el Kader was repulsed, and the garrison of Tlemen, which was on the brink of starvation, relieved. Abd el Kader now threatened the French fortified camp on the Tafna, and Bugeaud accepting his challenge, quitted his entrenchments, and totally defeated him on the 6th of July 1936. This defeat would have been, however, insufficient to check the intrepid Arab, had not a revolt of the powerful tribe of the Flita occurred at the same time, to chastise whom he was obliged to retire.
Abd el Kader was soon again in arms, and Clausel, who was fully occupied at Constantine, sent Bugeaud a second time into the province of Oran in 1837 at the head of 12,000 men. The French commander issued proclamations, announcing his intention to march into the Arab districts at the head of such a force as must crush all resistance, but at the same time offered peace to those tribes which should come in and make their submission. These proclamations had such an effect that Abd el Kader was compelled to sue for peace; and a personal conference having been held between himself and Bugeaud, an armistice was concluded on the 7th of May 1837, by which he acknowledged the sovereignty of France, and agreed to surrender the province of Oran and to confine himself to Koleah, Medeah, and
BUGEAUD DE LA PICONNERIE
France, as rat Lidugesin Omar 1784,
died in Paris, June 10, 1849. He entered the French army as a private in 1804, became a and larragona, ana was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel after the battle of Ordal, in Catalonia.
After the first return of the Bourbons, Col. Bugeaud celebrated the white lily in some doggerel rhymes; but these poetical effusions being passed by rather contemptuously, he again embraced, during the Hundred Days, the party of Napoleon, who sent him to the army of the Alps, at the head of the 14th regiment of the line. On the second return of the Bourbons he retired to Excideuil, to the estate of his father. At the time of the invasion of Spain by the duke of Angouleme he offered his sword to the Bourbons, but the offer being declined, he turned liberal, and joined the movement which finally led to the revolution of 1830. He was chosen as a member of the chamber of deputies in 183 philippe. and made a majorgeneral by Louis Appointed governor of the citadel of Blaye in 1833, he had the duchess of Berry under his charge, but earned no honour from the manner in which he discharged his mission, and became afterward known by the name of the "exgoaler of Blaye".
During the debates of the chamber of deputies on Jan. 16, 1834, M. complaining of Soult's military dictatorship, and Bugeaud's interrupting him with the words, "Obedience is the soldier's first duty" another deputy, M. Du long, pungently asked, "what, if ordered to become a goaler?' This incident led to a duel between Bugeau and Dulong, in which the latter was shot. The consequent exasperation of the Parisians was still heightened by his co-operation in suppressing the Paris insurrection April 13 and 14, 1834. The forces destined to suppress that insurrection were divided in to 3 brigades, one of which Bugeaud co-
In the rue Transnonain a handful of enthusiasts who still held a barricade on the morning of the 14th, when the serious part of the affair was over, were cruelly slaughtered by an overwhelming, Although this spot lay without the circumscription made over to Bugeaud's brigade, and he, therefore, had not participated in the massacre, the hatred of the people nailed his the deed, and despite all declarations to the contrary, persisted in stigmatising him as the "man of the rue Transnonain". Sent, June 16, 1836, to Algeria, Gen. Bugeaud became invested with a commanding position in the province of Oran, almost independent of the governor-general. Ordered
to fight Abd el Kader, and to subdue him by to come and enjoy his glory in France."
the display of an imposing army, he concluded the treaty of Tafna, allowing the opportunity for military operations to slip away, and placing his army in a critical state before it had begun to act. Bugeaud fought several battles previous to this treaty. A secret article, not reduced to writing, stipulated that 30,000 boojoos (about $ 12,000) should be paid to gen. Bugeaud. Called back to France, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general and appointed grand officer of the legion of honour. When the secret clause of the treaty of the Tofnaozzed out, Louis Philippe authorized Bugeaud to expend the money on certain public roads, thus to increase his popularity among his electors and secure his seat in the chamber of deputies.
At the commencement of 1841 he was governor-general of Algeria, with his administration the policy of France in Algeria underwent a complete change. He was the first governor-general who had an army adequate to its task placed under his command, who exerted an absolute authority over the generals second in command, who kept his post long enough to act up to a plan needing years for its execution. battle of Isly (Aug. 14, 1844), in which he vanquished the army of the emperor of Morocco with vastly inferior forces, owed its success to his taking the Mussulmans by surprise, without any previous declaration of war, and when negotiations were on the eve of being concluded. Already raised to the dignity of a Marshal of France, July 17, 1843 Bugeaud was now created duke of Isly.
Abd el Kader having, after his return to France, again collected an army. he was sent back to Algeria, where he promptly crushed the Arabian revolt. In consequence of differences between him and Guizot, occasioned by his expedition into Kabylia, which he • had undertaken against ministerial orders, he was replaced by the duke of Aumale, and, according to Guizot's expression, "enabled
During the night of Feb. 22-23, 1848, he was, on the secret advice of Guizot, ordered into the presence of Louis Philippe, who conferred upon him the supreme command of the whole armed force-the line as well as the national guard. At noon of the 23rd, followed by Gens. Rulhieres, Lamoriciere, De Salles, St. Arnaud, and othee Tuileries, there to be solemnly invested he proceeded to the general staff with the supreme command by the duke of Nemours. He reminded the officers present that he who was about to lead them against the Paris revolutionists "had never been beaten neither on the battle-field nor in insurrecttions," and for ihis time promised to make short work of the "rebel rabble".
Meantime, the news of his nomination contributed much to give matters a decisive
The national guard, still more incensed oy his appointment as supreme commander, roke out in the cry of "Down with Bugeaud! "Down with the man of the rue Transnonain!" and positively declared that they would not obey his orders. Frightened by this demonstration, Louis Philippe withdrew his orders, and spent the 23rd in vain negotiations. On Feb. 24, alone of Louis Philippe's of the marshal as a means to make his own peace with the national guard. The command was consequently placed in other hands, and Bugeaud dismissed. Two days later he placed, but in vain, his sword at the command of the provisional government.
When Louis Napoleon became president he conferred the command-in-chief of the army of the Alps upon Bugeaud, who was also elected by the department of CharanteInferieure as representative in the national
He published several literary productions, which treat chiefly of Algeria. In Aug. 1852, a monument was erected to him in Algiers, and also one in his native town.
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