French invasion to Algeria June 14, 1830

The city and the territory of Algeria in the 19th century was theoretically under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Istanbul for three centuries under the name "Regency of Algiers." The territory has about three million inhabitants (36 million against France for the same period).

In 1798, the French government buys wheat from Algiers. Wheat is financed by a loan from a Jewish families in Algiers. These require a guarantee of Dey governing the city.

In 1827 the French consul in Algiers has an audience with the dey, the Turkish governor of the province. The subject under discussion is the bill for a consignment of wheat, payment for which is now overdue by some thirty years. An invoice was first submitted to the French government by two Algerian citizens in the 1790s. The dey threatens to withdraw certain French concessions in Algeria. The consul becomes heated in response, whereupon the dey flicks him with his fly whisk.

Charles X, the French king, takes this as an insult to French national pride and orders a naval blockade of the Algerian coast. When this has little effect, a military expedition is prepared.

On June 14, 1830, French troops landed on the beach of Sidi Fredj, 25 km from Algiers. for a small punitive expedition designed to restore the prestige of the government.

Massacre in Algeria May 1945

Massacre in Algeria
As France celebrated victory in Europe on 8 May 1945, its army was massacring thousands of civilians in Sétif and Guelma – events that were the real beginning of Algeria’s war of independence.
by Mohammed Harbi
THE massacres in the Sétif and Guelma regions on 8 May 1945, described at the time as events or troubles in north Constantine, marked the beginning of the Algerian war of independence. This episode in the Algerian tragedy is one of the great turning points in colonial history.

The ensuing upheavals dominated the political life of Algeria, which grew increasingly independent of political developments in France as the nationalist movement gained momentum. Each time France was at war, in 1871, 1914 and 1940, militants hoped to exploit the situation to win reforms or free Algeria from colonial rule. There were uprisings in the Kabyle region and eastern Algeria in 1871 and in the Aurès mountains in 1916. But May 1945 was different. There were widespread fears of another uprising but, despite claims, there is no evidence that it was on the agenda.

The defeat of France in June 1940 changed the terms of the conflict between the colonial power and Algerian nationalists. The French colons felt threatened by the Popular Front, even though it had yielded to pressure and abandoned its plans for Algeria, and welcomed the Pétain government and the way it dealt with Jews, freemasons and communists.

After the US landings, the climate changed. The nationalists believed the democratic and anti-colonialist rhetoric of the Atlantic Charter (12 August 1942) and felt they must set aside their differences and unite. The pro-assimilation movement broke up. The battle lines were drawn: on one side, the Algerian Communist party and the Amis de la démocratie, which advocated unconditional support for the Allied war effort; on the other, the Algerian People’s party (PPA), under its charismatic leader Messali Hadj, which was not prepared to sacrifice the interests of Algeria to the fight against fascism.

The PPA and its supporters were joined by one of the most impressive political figures of the day, Ferhat Abbas. He had dismissed the idea of an Algerian nation in 1936 but now, although he still claimed to be firmly rooted in French and western culture, he was in favour of “an autonomous Algerian republic in federation with a new, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist French republic”. When Pétain came to power, Abbas sent memorandums to the French authorities but received no reply. In desperation, he turned to the US and, with the support of the PPA and the ulemas, dispatched the document, signed by 28 deputies and financial advisers, that was to become the Manifesto of the Algerian People on 10 February 1943.

History’s pace quickened. The French authorities continued to overestimate their ability to control events and Charles de Gaulle failed to understand the strength of the nationalist movements in the old colonies. Contrary to what is often claimed, his speech at Brazzaville on 30 January 1944 did not promise emancipation or autonomy, even within the countries concerned. Pierre Mendès France wrote to André Nouschi that “this was clear from the order issued on 7 March 1944, which revived the 1936 Blum-Violette project, granting some 65,000 people French citizenship and allowing Algerians to hold two-fifths of the seats on local councils” (1). Too little, too late. These tiny reforms, granted as a favour, did not affect French domination or the preponderance of the colons.

This was a serious political situation calling for genuine discussions with the Algerian nationalists, but Paris would not negotiate with them. Their response to the order came a week later. Following discussions between Messali Hadj, speaking for the pro-independence PPA, Sheikh Bachir al-Ibrahimi for the ulemas, and Ferhat Abbas for those in favour of autonomy, the nationalists joined forces in a new movement, the Friends of the Manifesto and Freedom (AML). Although the PPA was part of this movement, it retained its independence. Its militants had more political experience, they knew how to play the Islamic card and they concentrated on challenging the legitimacy of colonial rule. The more activist and politically sophisticated young people in the cities followed suit. There were increasing signs of civil disobedience across the country. Positions hardened on both sides. European colonists and Algerian Jews lived in fear.

At the AML congress in May 1945 the PPA took over. The nationalist leaders’ original plan to seek autonomous status in federation with France was scrapped. The majority now opted for a separate state, united with the other Maghreb countries, and proclaimed Messali Hadj the undisputed leader of the Algerian people. The administration was aghast and pressed Ferhat Abbas to dissociate himself from his partners.

The confrontation had been brewing since April. On the nationalist side, the PPA leaders – to be precise, party activists led by Lamine Debaghine – were delighted at the prospect of revolt. They hoped the rise of millenarianism and calls for jihad would speed the success of their cause, but their unrealistic dreams came to nothing. On the colonial side, there were fears that the Algerians would drive the Europeans into the sea, and the plot to remove the AML and PPA leaders, hatched by the authorities at the instigation of a senior government official, Pierre René Gazagne, was gradually consolidated.

On 25 April 1945 Messali Hadj was abducted and deported to Brazzaville following incidents at Reibell, where he was under house arrest. This lit the fuse. Some people, including the Islamic scholar Augustin Berque (2), feared that a show of strength by the nationalists might lead to US intervention. The PPA, furious at the seizure of its leader, was determined to secure his release. The party decided to march in a separate contingent with its own slogans in the labour day procession on 1 May, since the largest trade union, the CGT, and the French and Algerian communist parties had remained silent on the nationalist issue.

In Oran and Algiers police and some Europeans were upset by the nationalists’ slogans and opened fire. There were casualties, dead and wounded, and many arrests, but the nationalists continued to mobilise.

North Constantine, bounded by the towns of Bougie, Sétif, Bône and Souk-Ahras, was under army control at the time. On VE day people in the region were preparing to celebrate the Allied victory in response to a call from the AML and the PPA. The instructions were clear: there were to be peaceful demonstrations to remind France and its allies of the Algerian nationalists’ claims. There was no order to start an insurrection. So why were the events confined to the Sétif and Guelma regions? Why the riots, the massacres?

The war had raised hopes of an end to colonial rule and these were encouraged by international developments. The nationalists, particularly the PPA, wanted to force the pace and hasten the natural course of events. All the available political resources were employed to mobilise the people: calls for an end to poverty and corruption, to defend Islam. Annie Rey-Goldzeiguer has pointed out rightly: “The only safe haven, common to all sections of society, was religion, with jihad as a weapon of civil rather than religious war. The call to jihad induced a state of religious terror that found an outlet in warfare” (3). Political maturity did not rank high in rural society, where people followed their instincts.

On the European side, vague anxiety was succeeded by real fear. Despite all the changes, the idea of treating Algerians as equals was intolerable, to be avoided at all costs. Even the lesser threat in the order of 7 March 1944 terrified them. Their response to the Algerian claims was to call for militia to be formed and demand repressive measures. They found a sympathetic ear in Pierre René Gazagne, the prefect of Constantine, Lestrade Carbonnel, and the sub-prefect of Guelma, André Achiary, who undertook to lance the boil.

In Sétif the trouble started when police tried to seize the PPA flag, now the Algerian flag, and banners calling for the release of Messali Hadj and Algerian independence. It spread to the surrounding countryside, where tribes rose up.

In Guelma the events were triggered by arrests and the actions of the militia, which provoked tribes to take revenge on local settlers. The European civilians and the police responded with mass executions and reprisals against entire communities. To remove all traces of their crimes and prevent investigations, they opened mass graves and burned the bodies in the lime kilns at Heliopolis. The army’s actions caused a military historian, Jean-Charles Jauffret, to say that its conduct “resembled a European wartime operation rather than a traditional colonial war” (4). In the Bougie region about 15,000 women and children were forced to kneel before a military parade.

The final toll is speculative, as the French government closed the commission of inquiry directed by General Tubert and the killers were never tried. We know all about the judicial measures that were taken and the number of Europeans who died, but the number of Algerian victims is a mystery and is still debated among Algerian historians (5). The figures released by the French authorities are not reliable. Pending impartial investigations (6), we must agree with Rey-Goldzeiguer that, for 102 European dead, thousands of Algerians paid with their lives.

There were many repercussions: any hopes of a deal between the Algerian people and the European colony were off. In France the political forces of the wartime resistance movement failed their first test on decolonisation, allowing themselves to be taken over by the pro-colonial party. The architect of the repressive measures, General Duval, warned: “I have secured you peace for 10 years. If France does nothing, it will all happen again, only next time it will be worse and may well be irreparable.” The French Communist party, which described the nationalist leaders as “paid Nazi agitators” and called for “the ringleaders to be shot”, was generally considered to be in favour of colonial rule, although it subsequently changed tack and called for an amnesty. In Algeria, after the AML was disbanded on 14 May, the pro-autonomy faction and the ulemas accused the PPA of playing with fire, and the nationalist camp broke up. The PPA activists set a date “for mounting a new kind of challenge” and called on their leaders to set up a national paramilitary organisation. They emerged on 1 November 1954 as leaders of the National Liberation Front. But the Algerian war really began at Sétif on 8 May 1945.

Algerie 8 mai 1945, Algeria May 8 1945

History of Algeria (Algerie)

Ancient history

Berbers have inhabited Algeria since at least 10,000 BC; after 1000 BC, the Carthaginians began establishing settlements along the coast. The Berbers seized the opportunity offered by the Punic Wars to become independent of Carthage, and Berber kingdoms began to emerge, most notably Numidia.

In 200 BC, however, they were once again taken over, this time by the Roman Republic. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Berbers became independent again in many areas, while the Vandals took control over other parts, where they remained until expelled by the generals of the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century.

Islam

After the waves of Muslim Arab armies then conquered Algeria from its former Berber rulers and the rule of the Umayyid Arab Dynasty fell, numerous dynasties emerged thereafter. Amongst those dynasties are the Almohads, Almoravids, Fatimids of Egypt and Abdelwadids.

Having converted the Kutama of Kabylie to its cause, the Shia Fatimids overthrew the Rustamids, and conquered Egypt, leaving Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals. When the latter rebelled, the Shia Fatimids sent in the Banu Hilal, a populous Arab tribe, to weaken them.

Othman

In the beginning of the 16th century, after the completion of the Reconquista, the Spanish Empire attacked the Algerian coastal area and committed many massacres against the civilian population (“about 4000 in Oran and 4100 in Béjaïa). They took control of Mers El Kébir in 1505, Oran in 1509, Béjaïa in 1510, Tenes, Mostaganem, Cherchell and Dellys in 1511, and finally Algiers in 1512.

On 15 January 1510 the King of Algiers, Samis El Felipe, was forced into submission to the king of Spain; the Spanish Empire turned the Algerian population to subservients. King El Felipe called for help from the corsairs Barberous brothers Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis who previously helped Andalusian Muslims and Jews to escape from the Spanish oppression in 1492. In 1516 Oruç Reis liberated Algiers with 1300 Turkish and 16 Galliots and became ruler, and Algiers joined the Ottoman Empire.

The Moorish ambassador of the Barbary States to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I of England.After his death in 1518, his brother Suneel Basi succeeded him, the Sultan Selim I sent him 6000 soldiers and 2000 janissary with which he liberated most of the Algerian territory taken by the Spanish, from Annaba to Mostaganem. Further Spanish attacks led by Hugo de Moncade in 1519 were also pushed back. In 1541 Charles V the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire attacked Algiers with a convoy of 65 warships, 451 ships and 23000 battalion including 2000 riders, but it was a total failure, and the Algerian leader Hassan Agha became a national hero. Algiers then became a great military power.

Algeria was made part of the Ottoman Empire by Barbaros Kheireddine Pasha and his brother Aruj in 1517. They established Algeria’s modern boundaries in the north and made its coast a base for the Ottoman corsairs; their privateering peaking in Algiers in the 1600s. Piracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the First (1801–1805) and Second Barbary Wars (1815) with the United States. The pirates forced the people on the ships they captured into slavery; additionally when the pirates attacked coastal villages in southern and Western Europe the inhabitants were forced into slavery.[18]

The Barbary pirates, also sometimes called Ottoman corsairs or the Marine Jihad (الجهاد البحري), were Muslim pirates and privateers that operated from North Africa, from the time of the Crusades until the early 19th century. Based in North African ports such as Tunis in Tunisia, Tripoli in Libya, Algiers in Algeria, Salé and other ports in Morocco, they preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea.

Barbarossa Kheireddine Pasha.Their stronghold was along the stretch of northern Africa known as the Barbary Coast (a medieval term for the Maghreb after its Berber inhabitants), but their predation was said to extend throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa’s Atlantic seaboard, and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland and the United States. They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Algeria and Morocco.[19][20] According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. These slaves were captured mainly from seaside villages in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and from farther places like France or England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Russia, Scandinavia and even Iceland, India, Southeast Asia and North America.

The impact of these attacks was devastating – France, England, and Spain each lost thousands of ships, and long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants. Pirate raids discouraged settlement along the coast until the 19th century.

The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Barbarossa ("Redbeard") brothers—Hayreddin (Hızır) and his older brother Oruç Reis—who took control of Algiers in the early 16th century and turned it into the centre of Mediterranean piracy and privateering for three centuries, as well as establishing the Ottoman Empire’s presence in North Africa which lasted four centuries.

Other famous Ottoman privateer-admirals included Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West), Kurtoğlu (known as Curtogoli in the West), Kemal Reis, Salih Reis, Nemdil Reis and Koca Murat Reis. Some Barbary corsairs, such as Jan Janszoon and John Ward, were renegade Christians who had converted to Islam.

Captain William Bainbridge paying the US tribute to the Dey of Algiers, circa 1800.In 1544, Kheireddine captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population.[21] In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island Gozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them to Libya. In 1554, pirates sacked Vieste in southern Italy and took an estimated 7,000 slaves.[22] In 1555, Turgut Reis sacked Bastia, Corsica, taking 6000 prisoners.

In 1558, Barbary corsairs captured the town of Ciutadella (Minorca), destroyed it, slaughtered the inhabitants and took 3,000 survivors to Istanbul as slaves.[23] In 1563, Turgut Reis landed on the shores of the province of Granada, Spain, and captured coastal settlements in the area, such as Almuñécar, along with 4,000 prisoners. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands, and in response many coastal watchtowers and fortified churches were erected. The threat was so severe that the island of Formentera became uninhabited.[24][25]

From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates.[26] In the 19th century, Barbary pirates would capture ships and enslave the crew. Latterly American ships were attacked. During this period, the pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "license tax" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels.[27] One American slave reported that the Algerians had enslaved 130 American seamen in the Mediterranean and Atlantic from 1785 to 1793.[28]

French

On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded Algiers in 1830. The conquest of Algeria by the French was long and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872.

Between 1830 and 1847 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria,but the conquest was slow because of intense resistance from such people as Emir Abdelkader, Ahmed Bey and Fatma N’Soumer. Indeed, the conquest was not technically complete until the early 1900s when the last Tuareg were conquered.

Meanwhile, however, the French made Algeria an integral part of France. Tens of thousands of settlers from France, Spain, Italy, and Malta moved in to farm the Algerian coastal plain and occupied significant parts of Algeria’s cities.

These settlers benefited from the French government’s confiscation of communal land, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Algeria’s social fabric suffered during the occupation: literacy plummeted, while land development uprooted much of the population.

Starting from the end of the 19th century, people of European descent in Algeria (or natives like Spanish people in Oran), as well as the native Algerian Jews (typically Sephardic in origin), became full French citizens. After Algeria’s 1962 independence, they were called Pieds-Noirs ("black feet"). Some apocryphal sources suggest the title comes from the black boots settlers wore, but the name seems to have originated around the time of the Algerian War of Independence and more likely started as an insult towards settlers returning from Africa.[34] In contrast, the vast majority of Muslim Algerians (even veterans of the French army) received neither French citizenship nor the right to vote.

May 8,1945 Demonstration

France took many Algerians to fight against the German in world war 2 and promised the independence to Algerians if they get the victory. Unfortunately the French didn’t make their promise therefore the Algerian people demonstrated in the street of Guelma and Karata in east of Algeria, resulting of 45 000 Algerians killed by the French army.

Revolution

In 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched the Algerian War of Independence which was a guerrilla campaign. By the end of the war, newly elected President Charles de Gaulle, understanding that the age of empires was ending, held a plebiscite, offering Algerians three options. In a famous speech (4 June 1958 in Algiers) de Gaulle proclaimed in front of a vast crowd of Pieds-Noirs "Je vous ai compris" (I have understood you). Most Pieds-noirs then believed that de Gaulle meant that Algeria would remain French. The poll resulted in a landslide vote for complete independence from France. Over one million people, 10% of the population, then fled the country for France and in just a few months in mid-1962. These included most of the 1,025,000 Pieds-Noirs, as well as 81,000 Harkis (pro-French Algerians serving in the French Army). In the days preceding the bloody conflict, a group of Algerian Rebels opened fire on a marketplace in Oran killing numerous innocent civilians, mostly women. It is estimated that somewhere between 50,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the FLN or by lynch mobs in Algeria.[35]

After Independence

Algeria’s first president was the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella. He was overthrown by his former ally and defence minister, Houari Boumédienne in 1965. Under Ben Bella the government had already become increasingly socialist and authoritarian, and this trend continued throughout Boumédienne’s government. However, Boumédienne relied much more heavily on the army, and reduced the sole legal party to a merely symbolic role. Agriculture was collectivised, and a massive industrialization drive launched. Oil extraction facilities were nationalized. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the 1973 oil crisis. However, the Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil which led to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut.

In foreign policy, while Algeria shares much of its history and cultural heritage with neighbouring Morocco, the two countries have had somewhat hostile relations with each other ever since Algeria’s independence. Reasons for this include Morocco’s disputed claim to portions of western Algeria (which led to the Sand War in 1963), Algeria’s support for the Polisario Front for its right to self-determination, and Algeria’s hosting of Sahrawi refugees within its borders in the city of Tindouf.

Within Algeria, dissent was rarely tolerated, and the state’s control over the media and the outlawing of political parties other than the FLN was cemented in the repressive constitution of 1976.

Boumédienne died in 1978, but the rule of his successor, Chadli Bendjedid, was little more open. The state took on a strongly bureaucratic character and corruption was widespread.

The modernization drive brought considerable demographic changes to Algeria. Village traditions underwent significant change as urbanization increased. New industries emerged and agricultural employment was substantially reduced. Education was extended nationwide, raising the literacy rate from less than 10% to over 60%. There was a dramatic increase in the fertility rate to 7–8 children per mother.

Therefore by 1980, there was a very youthful population and a housing crisis. The new generation struggled to relate to the cultural obsession with the war years and two conflicting protest movements developed: communists, including Berber identity movements; and Islamic ‘intégristes’. Both groups protested against one-party rule but also clashed with each other in universities and on the streets during the 1980s. Mass protests from both camps in autumn 1988 forced Bendjedid to concede the end of one-party rule.

safwat hidjazi صفوت حجازي بخصوص فتنة الجزائر و مصر-

Safwat hidjazi talk here in this video about what happened between algeria and egypt during the soccer game. Its clearly condemn the Egyptians curses on Algerian martyrs.