page_title: French conquest of Algeria
section_title: Abd Al-Qādir's resistance renewed
hierarchical_section_title: French conquest of Algeria / Abd Al-Qādir's resistance renewed
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le sujet de ce tableau a été emprunté à la relation du combat de Sidi-Brahim (26 septembre 1845) rédigée par le Duc d'Aumale pour la Revue des Deux-Mondes. "Le capitaine de Géraux, à la tête de 73 hommes de la 1ère compagnie du 8ème bataillon de chasseurs à pied, portant sept blessés, après s'être défendu pendant 3 jours dans le marabout de Sidi-Brahim, sans vivres et sans eau, contre toutes les forces d'Abd-El-Kader, essaie le 26 septembre 1845, à six heures du matin, de se faire jour à la baïonnette. Après un combat héroïque, à bout de forces et de munitions, tous les braves qui formaient la petite colonne tombent successivement autour des corps de leurs officiers, le lieutenant Chapedelaine et le capitaine de Géraux".
context_page_description: The French conquest of Algeria took place between 1830 and 1902. In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a naval blockade, following which France invaded and quickly seized Algiers in 1830, and seized other coastal communities. Amid internal political strife in France, decisions were repeatedly taken to retain control of the territory, and additional military forces were brought in over the following years to quell resistance in the interior of the country.
  Algerian resistance forces were divided between forces under Ahmed Bey ben Mohamed Chérif at Constantine, primarily in the east, and nationalist forces in Kabylie and the west. Treaties with the nationalists under `Abd al-Qādir enabled the French to first focus on the elimination of the remaining Ottoman threat, achieved with the 1837 capture of Constantine. Abd Al-Qādir continued to give stiff resistance in the west.
context_section_description: In May 1837, General Thomas Robert Bugeaud, then in command of Oran, negotiated the Treaty of Tafna with Abd al-Qādir, in which he effectively recognized Abd al-Qādir's control over much of the interior of what is now Algeria. Abd Al-Qādir used the treaty to consolidate his power over tribes throughout the interior, establishing new cities far from French control. He worked to motivate the population under French control to resist by peaceful and military means. Seeking to again face the French, he laid claim under the treaty to territory that included the main route between Algiers and Constantine.  When French troops contested this claim in late 1839 by marching through a mountain defile known as the Iron Gates, Abd al-Qādir claimed a breach of the treaty, and renewed calls for jihad. Throughout 1840 he waged guerrilla war against the French in the provinces of Algiers and Oran. Valée's failures to end the war led to his replacement in December 1840 by General Bugeaud.
  Bugeaud instituted a strategy of scorched earth, combined with fast-moving cavalry columns not unlike those used by Abd al-Qādir to progressively take territory from Abd al-Qādir. The troops' tactics were heavy-handed, and the population suffered significantly. Abd Al-Qādir was eventually forced to establish a mobile headquarters that was known as a smala or zmelah.  In 1843 French forces raided this camp while he was away from it, capturing more than 5,000 fighters and Abd al-Qādir's warchest.
  Abd Al-Qādir was forced to retreat into Morocco, from which he had been receiving some support, especially from tribes in the border areas. When French diplomatic efforts to convince Morocco to expel Abd al-Qādir failed, the French resorted to military means with the First Franco-Moroccan War in 1844 to compel the sultan to change his policy.
  A French force was destroyed at the Battle of Sidi Brahim in 1845, but eventually hemmed between French and Moroccan troops on the border in December 1847, Abd al-Qādir chose to surrender to the French, under terms that he be allowed to enter exile in the Middle East. The French violated these terms, holding him in France until 1852, when he was allowed to go to Damascus.
  The Ottomans lodged a formal protest over the invasion of Algeria, but they never conceded the loss of the province. A map of "Ottoman Africa" from 1905 still shows the empire as possessing a border with Morocco to the west of the "region" (hitta, a term for a territory with vague borders) of Algeria.
caption: Battle of Sidi Brahim in 1845
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