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 Using Napoleon's 1808 contingency plan for the invasion of Algeria, 34,000
French soldiers landed twenty-seven kilometers west of Algiers, at Sidi Ferruch,
on June 12, 1830. To face the French, the Dey of Algiers assembled 7,000 janissaries, 19,000
troops from the Beys of Constantine and Oran, and about 17,000 Kabyles. The
French established a strong beachhead and pushed toward Algiers, thanks in part
to superior artillery and better organization. Algiers was captured after a
three-week campaign, and Hussein Dey fled into exile. French troops raped,
looted (taking 50 million francs from the treasury in the Casbah), desecrated
mosques, and destroyed cemeteries. It was an inauspicious beginning to France's
self-described "civilizing mission," whose character on the whole was
cynical, arrogant, and cruel.
Hardly had the news of the capture of Algiers reached Paris than Charles X
was deposed, and his cousin Louis Philippe, the "citizen king," was
named to preside over a constitutional monarchy. The new French government, composed of
liberal opponents of the Algiers expedition, was reluctant to pursue the
conquest ordered by the old regime, but withdrawing from Algeria proved more
difficult than conquering it. A parliamentary commission that examined the
Algerian situation concluded that although French policy, behavior, and
organization were failures, the occupation should continue for the sake of
national prestige. In 1834 France annexed the occupied areas, which had an
estimated Muslim population of about 3 million, as a colony. Colonial
administration in the occupied areas -- the so-called régime du sabre
(government of the sword) -- was placed under a governor general, a high-ranking
army officer invested with civil and military jurisdiction, who was responsible
to the minister of war.
Whatever initial misgivings Louis Philippe's government may have had about
occupying Algeria, the geopolitical realities of the situation created by the
1830 intervention argued strongly for reinforcing the French presence there.
France had reason for concern that Britain, which was pledged to maintain the
territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, would move to fill the vacuum left
by a French pullout. The French devised elaborate plans for settling the
hinterland left by Ottoman provincial authorities in 1830, but their efforts at
state building were unsuccessful on account of lengthy armed resistance.
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