Empire: World History - 376. Algerian Revolution: The French Invasion (Ep 1)

Episode Date: July 5, 2026

How did the French colonise Algeria? Was the Algerian economy built on slavery? Who was the revolutionary priest who united Algerians against the invaders? What atrocities did the French commit in the mountains? In the first episode of this series on the Algerian Revolution, William and Anita explore how France colonised Algeria, sowing the seeds of the War of Independence. They discuss what Algeria was like before the French, the trivial diplomatic incident that sparked the invasion, and early Algerian resistance. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com/EMPIRE. Summer sale is here: get an annual Empire Club membership for an extra 20% off with code SUMMER26. That's ad-free listening, early-access, every bonus episode, and full access to our exclusive members' series. Sale ends August 31st, so grab it before summer's over.   For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Imogen Marriott Editor: Charlie Rodwell Social Producer: Charlie Johnson Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnden. And me, William Durhampool. This is the most fascinating series. And I have to say I knew very little about it until three weeks ago when I got a huge pile of Algerian books and I'd been sitting in my garden reading through them. There are so many different amazing stories contained in this series. The story of the Barbary Corsairs, all these white Europeans who make up a third of the population of Algiers, the slaves, the French conquest, the settling of one million French people in Algeria. It's one of the most sort of extraordinary stories of colonisation. Then an equally extraordinary story of resistance. Many of you, I'm sure, will have seen the Battle of Algiers.

the great movie that won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. You then get this extraordinary period when Algiers becomes the sort of chic capital of all the revolutionaries, the 1960s. The Black Panthers turn up. Tim Leary, who's escaped from jail in California, having developed LSD turns up. Nina Simone turns up. And then, and really important for today, there's the whole story of how the Pied Noir, resettled in France, formed. their own party under one of the torturers who was involved in the vicious anti-resistance

French activities, extrajudicial activities. And that man is Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose daughter, Marine, may well seize power in France by the end of this year. Well, let me tell you what we're doing in today's episode, because we're going to look at how France colonised Algeria to begin with, and also, even before that, what Algeria was like before the French arrived. In the 1500s and 1600s, Algiers flourished as a virtually independent pirate republic within the Ottoman Empire. Now, we've covered this on Empire before, so if you'd like to hear it, just head to episode 53, and we take you on a deep dive of the Barbary Corsairs.

But just to remind you in brief, the coast of North Africa was known as the Barbary Coast. And Corsairs, that's the French word, given to pirates who stormed the seas of the Mediterranean. and beyond, and captured and ransomed over a million Europeans. So it was this industry of slavery and privateering that Algiers was built upon. When you go to Algiers today, it's very, very interesting because there are these incredibly beautiful courtyard houses, absolutely sort of dreamy interiors with arcades and fountains. But you know that they were built in a world where. where a third of the population was enslaved.

Many of them, you know, villagers from Iceland or Cornwall or Cork, captured and enslaved in often very brutal circumstances in Algiers. They weren't all put into servitude. Sometimes Corsairs would take people. They would then write to their families and say, you're on and back, you pay up. So it is a miserable trade, but it is also a great wealth generator. What you get at this time, Willie, is a massive slave infrastructure. You know, you've got markets, you've got pens in the city, not containing livestock, but humans.

This foundation of slavery and oppression, we've talked about this before. And I know that you, me and Barnaby, Rogerson disagree horribly about this. I just think it's bad. But some people who are taken as slaves are, if they convert to Islam, as we discussed in the Ottoman series, you know, if they do convert, they can rise. and a fair few do. They rise to powerful naval and political positions. Yeah, I mean, the Ottoman system is not one we would choose to live in, but it's important to remember that the elite of the Ottoman Empire are all former slaves,

the entire civil service, the entire upper military. And it's not the same as Caribbean plantation slavery. This is a world where a slave elite run the state. under the Ottoman Emperor, the entire military and civil bureaucracy are people who had been enslaved. And therefore, it's a place where Europeans go. And there are these extraordinary encounters. I've just been reading Nandini Das' extraordinary new book, This Little World. And she talks about this guy from Great Yarmouth, who became the day of Alger.

So you've got these sort of random guys who get picked up in boats, the Mediterranean, who end up rising to the top of this. And many of them are English or indeed Irish. And so it's a weird pirate haven, full of barbarous cruelty, but also some people who make incredible advances in society and end up running this place. Let's address a question. What brings the Corsair Republic down in Algeria?

And why is it that the French turnout? So you've got the Ottoman Empire fracturing in the 16th to 17th century. You get more and more of the extremities like the Balkans and North Africa declaring independence. And you get the rise of Europe. This is the period of the beginning of European colonialism. The European economy is surging forwards. The British are making advances in India. And the French see their moment in the early 19th century.

The French have bought vast quantities of grain for their army. from the Algerians, and then they don't want to repay the debt. And there's this extraordinary moment when Hussein Day, the last ruler of independent Algeus, gets into a furious argument with the French consul, who's a guy called Pierre de Val, over this unpaid French debt, and he swats the French consul with a fly whisk, which is actually, you know, from India, a chowry. It's not a sort of thing you swat flies with. No, you still see it in the gurdwara.

It's like it's a whisk that is is waved over the, you know, the holy book. Yeah. But in this case, you know, it is something that sounds so trivial and frivolous. But, you know, it's just a rage leading to a swat with a fly swatter that then leads to something really very dangerous because it becomes the causes bell eye, doesn't it? I mean, you know, and one I sort of feel like France is just sort of itching for any excuse. So, you know, just a little bit of context. France is ruled by King Charles X. He is facing growing opposition at home.

You know, he needs a win. He needs a war. I mean, we've had this before, haven't we? Unpopular governments starting a war that they want to win. It's, you know, this is a dyed in the wool technique. At first, what France does in response to this fly-swatage is they try a naval blockade. But the blockade doesn't work. And then you've got this escalation really pretty.

fast of military movement. So in June 1830, a French expeditionary force of wait for it, 37,000 Frenchmen land west of Algiers at a place called Sidi Farouc. Now, initially, you know, you come with that much shock and all, there's only sort of limited opposition and, you know, you've got a few scattered musketmen hidden in bushes taking shots. But the city of Algiers just because of the sheer force of numbers falls in three weeks. So simultaneously, back in France, you've got, though, King Charles X, who should be basking in his gotcha moment, being overthrown. So, I mean, little good did it do him in the July Revolution.

And he gets replaced by his cousin Louis Philippe. You may have a change of, a regime change, if you like in France, you know, a new man at the top. But the French army stays in Algeria. And this attempt to gain popularity for Charles Tenth, which obviously failed, because he gets removed almost the moment that the army arrives, leaves France with this conquest on the coast. Algiers is a prosperous city. It's a major acquisition. And the French obviously don't want to give it back. But on the other hand, they don't know quite what to do with it.

And no one has really sort of planned for what happens once they've actually captured it. And there's no master plan for a new colony or 300 years of French history being altered at this point. They have no idea what they've done in the sense. Then the resistance begins. And it's led by an extraordinary man called Abd El-Qadir. You know what? I often think about this as sort of the accidental colony. But, you know, we've got to, might as well keep it.

But look, there are Algerians who have something to say about this. You know, it may be accidental to you, France, and you may want to keep it. But, you know, there were people here before. And Abdul Qadir, who is born in 1808, near a place called Mascara in Western Algeria. He's also one of your handsome chaps, Anita. I think you would have enjoyed you, the idea. Can I just say, I kept the blame for this. You're always preemptive on the handsome.

I mean, you know, he's fine. I am nowhere near others' description of him. And I'll let me read some of them, too, you. Their words, not mine. But look, he is striking. I'll give you that. The French romantic painter Horace Venné, who is the official artist of conquest, because you didn't have photographers and he had artists of conquest. He paints Adelkerr repeatedly.

And in the picture, you know, you see somebody who is almost scholarly looking. He's got that sort of, you know, aquiline kind of nose and a very sort of distinguished bearing. Victor Hugo really had a crush. He eulatized him in verses. He called him Le beau soldat, le beau pretre, the handsome soldier, the handsome priest. And he's got this intensity. And the intensity, as you say, you know, he doesn't just look like a scholar. He is a scholar because he memorizes the Quran as a child.

Very religious. He makes the pilgrimage to Mecca at the age of 18. He visits Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, along the way, soaking up everything he can from the scholars that he meets. And, you know, when he comes home, it's said that his ancestors, a man called Sidi Abdel El-Qaeda himself, a great Sufi master from Baghdad, who he's actually named after, appears in a dream of his father and says, you know what, your son, my relative, is the chosen one. So you've got all of this sort of mythology and actual knowledge behind this

man, Abdul Qaeda. And, you know, the followers just lap it up. You know, they believe in him entirely that he is the chosen one, as said in a dream. And, you know, given what he does go on to do, it's not hard to understand why this has a snowball effect. You have a few followers, and then as, you know, his story unfolds, it turns into a movement. So I mentioned the father with a dream, I should say who he is. He's the head of the Algerian branch of the Qadiria. It's one of the great Sufi brotherhoods. So, so not, you know, not tribal chieftain, not military commander. This is a religious leader, his father, who sees resistance to France as a religious battle, you know, at Jihad, a holy war, if you like. But, you know, that word's Sufi.

Let's think about that because, you know, we use it. Actually, I worry sometimes that we throw away these terms and we don't explain them. You know, being a part of the Sufi brotherhood, Willie, what does it actually mean? So this is hugely important. And in the 18th, 19th century is really the heart of Islamic life in many parts of the Islamic world. And this is particularly so in North Africa. So being the head of a Sufi order in North Africa is a big deal. After the people sent in by Constantinople to rule you, these are the next most important people on this coastline.

Now, Sufi Islam, for those that don't know about it, is something which I think we should do a series on at some point. It's a really fascinating world. It's the world of Rumi in 13th century Persia, of Ibn Arabi, in Andalusia. Whirling dervishes? Wirling dervishes, all that stuff. And it's central to Islamic life. It's mystical Islam.

It's about the heart rather than about the rules of the Quran. And these brotherhoods are incredibly important culturally, but they're also very important politically. In North Africa, the Kadaria, Abdul Qadda's order, is the kind of principle, I wonder what the equivalent in the Christian world is. I suppose it's sort of the monastic movement combined with a bit of sort of Shakespearean. But isn't it sort of, you know, sort of, you know, sonic-quoting Knights Templar is kind of what it feels like to me. Yes, that's not a bad. Yes, and it can be, and though, you know, there are often tendencies to, for very good reasons, to romanticise Sufism,

because it comes out with all this gorgeous poetry. It does have a Knights Templar sort of religious side to it. And there are great Sufi warrior brotherhoods who wage war as well as praying. And these two things are important to have side by side. Anyway, this means that Argy, Abd al-Qadhar, is well placed to lead the resistance. He's not just a handsome young man, well-educated and patriotic. he is because of his religious training, because of his memorization of the Quran, because of his family status as head of this brotherhood, he's the natural leader after the day has gone,

after the Turks have been packed off. And there's this wonderful scene, incidentally, when we have these wonderful descriptions by the French of the day of Algiers leaving in this sort of wonderful succession of galleys from Algiers. And these are the senior local people left to fight the French after the Turks have gone. They are very much sons of the soil and they're not happy obviously at the French, these infidels moving in. Yeah, rocking up and taking over. Also, you know, because of this, the way in which it's structured, these different

brotherhoods, you know, who are the mystical fighters, you know, they are militaristic and they're mystical, right? But what you actually, in effect, have, if you were plotting this on a map, is you have a really very powerful resistance. network, you know, with different cells, if you like, already built. Different cells, you know, always sort of moving. You take one out. The others can act because there's not a central, if you like, brain that's telling them what to do. They know what the mission is and they do it. And these lodges, you know, they are just not just places of congregation where

people complain and plot how to overthrow the French. They're quite sophisticated. They have schools, hospitals, granaries, justice, you know, little courts of arbitration. So, you know, it is the whole fabric, if you like, of North African Muslim life. So, you know, when you've got Abdul Qadr, who rides into this region as the head, he just has to walk in and there is a network already around him, you know. And if they trust him, as the Brotherhood do trust him, well, then you've got an army is what you've got. And so in 1832 at the age of 24, you have Abdul Qaeda becoming the chosen one, the man at the middle of all of these brotherhoods who will lead the resistance.

And in just three years, it's a combination of military skill, the fact he has such religious authority, people don't question him. He's also smart, you know, he's a good diplomat. And he is a good organizer. You know, he understands this network, like an outsider could never understand. He starts and manages in just three years to build a parallel, if you like, and functioning Algerian state. Right. So there's nothing to do with the French, has no respect for the French. They have no say and what happens, he's running it. And what he does, which is really brilliant. Technically, you know, it is brilliant. He says the capital, Zmaler, is not going to be fixed in one place.

So I'm not picking a city. I'm not picking any one of these towns. I'm not picking any one of these towns. I'm not picking. the place where I lived, it's going to be on, you know, pretty much not on wheels, but it's going to move. Okay, so it's a vast travelling city, Zemala, tents, workshops, smithes, armourers, you know, treasury, hospital, like the schools, all of this, loaded onto horseback, loaded onto camel, and whenever you feel you need to, you load up and you move out. And so they are always one step ahead of the French. Adel Calder has a mobile city and just to give you a sense of the size of it

no fewer than 60,000 people and whenever he wants at a moment's notice he can move fast and he can move it out so what are the French going to do? They're like, what the hell? They've never seen anything like this, Willey and they've got an accidental colony

now they have a completely implausible enemy as well. So it's a tricky situation for them. He's an extraordinary man. Abdul Qadda, he learns French and he starts reading French newspapers and diplomatic reports in order to master the French on their own grounds. And he understands instinctively, you know, not to fight the French in open battle in a set piece. It's guerrilla warfare, hence the mobile capital and hence these raids. As the French begin to decide that they want

to not only seize Algiers, but to take the rich countryside around it. And I think what perhaps people don't necessarily understand when they think of Algeria, if they haven't been there, is that this is remarkably like a northern Mediterranean country. You've got a coastal plain, which is very nice for grain. You then have this lovely hilly region, which is perfectly suited for vines.

And the French eye all this, the first 100 miles, from the coast is some of the richest countryside in the Mediterranean, perfect for French farmers. And the French begin to encourage people to come here. And very quickly, large numbers of Frenchmen and a few Italians and a few Spanish rock up and begin to take over the land. And Abdul Qadr steps up his resistance and begins attacking these people.

A few years into his resistance, he's got 8,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, 240 artillerymen with 20 cannons, it's a proper army. It's not, you know, Bojest with a bunch of sort of guys and turbans riding in on camels as a sort of tribal rabble. Although it is a guerrilla army, it's a properly trained one with modern weaponry. He understands how he can win this war. He says it directly to a French prisoner at one of his fortress towns. You will die of disease in our mountains. And those whom sickness shall not carry off, my horseman will send to death with their bullets.

And he's right. He twice forces the French generals to negotiating tables on his terms. The Taffner Treaty in 1837 grants him sovereignty of two-thirds of Algeria. And for a period, and it's a big surprise, really, France recognizes Abdul Qadda as the ruler of most of the country he claims to have conquered. And as I say, what makes him formidable is his intelligence. He captures French papers. He reads them. And at one point, the French discover that he's been reading verbatim accounts of the debates in the the French chamber of deputies. Following every argument about the war in Paris.

He knows how unpopular it is. He knows how much it's costing the French, his resistance. And he's monitoring the pressure on the government to cut its losses and negotiate. And he's bringing this up in negotiations himself. And negotiators are important because, you know, just to underline what's going on in France, you know, the French are saying, you know, we are knackered and tired and poor. And we got rid of that Charles X. Why are we having to put up with his old policy and pay for it?

And so, you know, there's a great deal of discomfort. Adelka, they're reading all of these dispatches and sort of becoming quite confident in the fact that if he can just sort of prick the, you know, the big bear, he might be able to get somewhere. He starts negotiating and he signs a treaty with the French who, you know, are at this point not consolidated and what they want and how they're going to get what they want, even if they decide what they want. So this treaty, the Treaty of Demichel in February 1834, and actually, you know, the treaty grants him quite a lot. We're going to take a break now. Join us after the break where we tell you what he gets for his negotiating and just a little something to maybe leave you with thinking about before the break. The French who come in at this time, they start becoming known as the pi noir, the blackfeet. That is going to be really important because it's going to be a real.

important term in the 1850s, but we're talking about the 1830s. And that's the first sort of reported use of it, because these soldiers who came in from France wore black boots. I didn't know that. And the local population wore sandals. There is another theory that actually, you know, those slaves who were brought over, the Europeans, the white-skinned slaves, many of them forced to work in the vineyards to tread the grapes. And treading the grapes makes your feet change colour. And so they wear the Pia noir for that. But I sort of, because of the way it will be used in 20 years from now,

I sort of favour this idea of the black boots are coming. The Pia noir are coming. Anyway, join us after the break. This episode is sponsored by our old friends at Better Help. Anita and I love tracing the origin of words and stigma is a fascinating one. Routed in ancient Greece, it once referred to a physical mark used to identify those deemed inferior. Over centuries the world has evolved to mean something invisible but no less painful, complex social judgments driven by historic patterns and barriers, something that holds

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Plus, that signature, wait, for this price? Moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. So welcome back. Just before the break, Willie, we were talking about, you know, he gets the French to sign this treaty. What does he get? I said quite a lot. Well, actually, yes, he does, because the French are forced to recognize Abdul Qadr's authority over roughly two-thirds of Algeria. It's a big country, too, Algeria. But it doesn't, you know, not just in a titular role, it gives him the right to import arms. Basically, you know, what? We acknowledge you as the sovereign of the Algerian interior and we are going to let you do whatever you do. It's going to be. be a big mistake to think that in a minute. But, you know, that's what they do. And, you know, he uses the piece to consolidate his state. So he starts building fortifications and he starts

training his army. And he starts extending the reach of this Cadillia network, you know, the Brotherhood network, if you like. So right under the noses of the French, he's building armed resistance in a way. And his letters survive to Louis Philippe, which are extraordinary. He's writing in French to Louis-Philippe, and they're incredibly civilised and wonderful letters. And he writes one leader to another as equals asking Louis-Philippe to be a gentleman and honour the treaties that he's made. But it is France that violates the treaty. You can write as many lovely letters as you like, thanks for the treaty. within a year,

Willie, France violates the treaty. So, you know, after two years of fighting, there's a new treaty. Now, the Treaty of Tathna in 1837 is even more favourable to Abdul Qadir. But you know what happens to treaties? France violates it again. I mean, you know, pretty soon after, you know,

two years in October 1839 and starts advancing into territory that it had said it was going to leave to Abdul Qadir and his followers. And, you know, I think by this second treaty violation, the Algerians knew that treaties aren't going to be honoured and a war is coming. So when France violates the Taffna Treaty and pushes into the territory that it had agreed to lead to Abd al-Qadir, it doesn't just resume fighting. He, you know, he doesn't just resume fighting. He writes to the French Governor General.

First of all, you know, as a civilized man, it is a great document. November 1839 and he tells the Algerian story Willie do you want to read it? You got it to hand because it's a great piece, powerful piece of writing, go for it. We were at peace and the limits between your country and ours

were clearly determined. You have published the claim that all the lands between Algiers and Constantine should no longer receive orders from me. This rupture comes from you. However, so that you do not accuse of your betrayal, I warn you that I will resume the war.

Prepare yourselves. Warn your travellers, all who live in isolated places. Take every precaution you see fit. I mean, that's chivalrous stuff, isn't it? I'm going to hurt you, but let me give you notice. But it's got that sort of gentility about it that would have appealed to the French people. And dignity. Yeah.

But I mean, you know, what it is. It's a, I mean, it is still a warning. I'm going to kill you all. But it is sort of done with this argument, you know, that would appeal to French sensibility. that it is not I that has decided to do this. I didn't start this, but I'm going to finish it to use the Friday night nomenclature of a pub lock-in. So, Anita, tell us about General Thomas Robert Bougou.

Well, you know, ironically, and I don't even know if you know this, he is the same General Thomas Robert Bougou who signs the Treaty of Taffna that then gets broken. Yeah, his ink is on that page. So let me tell you about him. Okay, he served in the Napoleonic War. A very good tactician. He's appointed Governor General of Algeria in 1840. And he immediately sees what has been going wrong with the French campaigns.

That, you know, the French have been thinking with the mentality of a conventional European army that is at war with another European army in terrain that they know. None of that is true. None of that is true here. So what he decides is that he is going to use another strategy. And it's called Razio. the scorched earth policy. It's something that we normally associate with Kitchener and the Boer War,

but scorched earth is exactly what it says on the tin. He was Napoleonic General and he'd been on the Russian campaign. And of course what happens with the Napoleonic invasion of Russia is the Russians burn everything around the French. He then begins to just burn out the countryside of Abdul Qaddeer's. supporters. Fast moving troops, travelling like, strike deep into Abdul Qaddez territory and mercilessly burn crops, destroy granaries, slaughter all the livestock, destroy the olive groves, demolish wells. And he reduces a significant part of this incredibly beautiful countryside to a wasteland.

It's, you know, more or less what the Israelis are doing in southern Lebanon at the moment. It's that thing we're just destroying towns, destroying farmland, making the land uninhabitable. And this is accompanied by a whole pattern of atrocities. Tell us what happens in the caves, Anita. So this is really deeply distressing and, you know, just a warning because it's awful. So in June 1845, French soldiers chase around 1,000 people to some caves, a cave system in the Dara Mountains. and, you know, these people seek refuge. And when I say people, I'm not just talking about soldiers,

I'm talking about women, children, their pets, their livestock, all on the run. And what happens is the French colonel, instead of just laying siege and, you know, trying to starve them out, he sends a message, he says, I want you to surrender. They don't. So he orders his men to light fires at the mouths of the caves and to keep them burning. Now, what that does is if you have an enclosed system with, you know, limited oxygen and you're lighting fires, they choke people out near the fires with smoke. They also burn up the oxygen inside. And for 24 hours, he knows what he's doing. For 24 hours, he keeps the fires burning. And when finally those last embers go out, the French go into the caves and they find the bodies of somewhere between 500 and 15,000.

people. So again, that's men, women, children, animals, all asphyxiated or burned to death if they happen to be near those fires that were set alight. When the news gets out, France is outraged. So you've got deputies condemning it in the assembly. You've got newspapers denouncing this as barbarism. But they're not that outraged in that they promote the guy who does it, don't they? True. I mean, they do. You know, you have a massacre like that, as we've seen in India, with, you know, sort of Jenny-O-A-Bargue, it becomes a lightning rod of resistance as well. And what you have as a result of the news of what happens, and by the way, this is not an isolated case. There are other French outrages, two very notable ones I can think of, that target men, women and children in such a way. Addo-Carter is even more of a magnet

for those who want to throw the French out of the French, the French can do this. Just like, you know, we saw in Jenny Omanabag, if the British can do this, we're going to get them out. under any circumstances. So he goes on for two more years. You know, this despite the fact that you've got a man now opposing him who understands the terrain and knows how to fight dirty, two more years he fights on. But then eventually he gets cornered, he gets outgunned.

And it gets betrayed. Betrayed, yeah. I mean, without the betrayal, maybe you would not have lost. I mean, you pick up the story because this all happens in the mobile capital, right? Exactly. The mobile capital, the Zemala, is the key to his success. because it's not stationary. It's not somewhere that the French can go and attack and surround with cannon and blow up.

It's always on the mood. It's always ahead of them. And they don't know where it is. But in May 1843, he is betrayed by, I think, his own people, some of his own people are so exhausted at this warfare. They think that if they betray him, that it will end and there'll be peace. What happens instead? and Abdul Qadda is not with the Zemullah when it happens he's gone out on a raid

and three days afterwards he discovers when it's too late to do anything except to absorb the news that the French have attacked all the women and children who've been left behind they've killed at least a tenth of everyone inside the Zemala mainly women and children and the elderly the treasury is lost

the workshop is destroyed his armories have gone it was, as Abdul Qadha later tells his French captors, the beginning of the end. The tribes that have sheltered under his production now begin to turn away. They think of him as a loser, they've lost faith in him, and they simply feel they can't afford to share his fate. So, you know, you've got biographers of Abdel Qaeda who pour over, you know, what happened here. One of them, the way he puts it, is interesting. The mind boggles when we think that it took seven years of combat and 100,000 men of the greatest army in the world

to destroy what the Emir built in two years and five months. So even though they may have disapproved of things like caves, France does celebrate his surrender as a triumph. And they also recognise him. And this is the beginning of this sort of period of orientalism when the French and other Europeans are sort of beginning to romanticize the romantic Arab. although Abdul Qadre after his surrender arrives in Toulon in chains, they actually put him in Mary Queen of Scots's old chateau in Amboise.

It's the most beautiful town. It's one of the most gorgeous towns in Loire Valley. Linna da Vinci is buried there. And he has a household of 80 people who's allowed to bring with him, but the French climate does for them. And one by one, they begin to die. And he's corresponding with Napoleon III. and Napoleon the third

is listens to this piteous tale of these Algerians who can't cope in the damp French climate and so he is allowed to retire to Damascus

to spend the rest of his life as a private citizen but one of the most admired figures in the Islamic world and he becomes a great friend of Sir Richard Burton the explorer and his wife Isabel who are the consul

in Damascus at this period and the life that he builds in Damascus is extraordinary. He moves into this beautiful courthard house. You know, I like a good court child house. By the time he's been there a few years, and he's such a hero. He has 1,200 armed Algerians on his payroll in Damascus. And he's sort of leading the life that he never quite managed because of warfare. He's preaching in the Umyrd Mosque and this sort of thing. So something I'd love to mention at this point is what happens. in Damascus in 1860.

And Abdul Qadir is the great hero. Eugene Rogan has actually written a whole book on Damascus in 1860, which I strongly recommend. But what happens is sectarian violence breaks out in Damascus between the Druze community and the Christians. And several thousand Christians are killed. And Abdu Qadir takes them in and shelters them. The French, who are the people that have destroyed his life,

have killed his people, but have allowed him to retire to Damascus, have many missionaries inside Damascus, and he opens his house to them, and he personally shelters them, leads armed escorts to bring the Christians to safety, and he ends up saving the lives and sheltering 12,000 people. And when Ottoman forces restore order, the European governments honor him. Napoleon the third sends him the Grand Cross of the Legion don't know. Lincoln from America sends him a pair of pistols, and the former prisoner of French Algeria ends up becoming the protector of the French in Damascus. So he's a very sort of honourable figure. He's remembered in the Arab word, particularly in Algeria, as a sort of Saladin figure, this hero resistance, who was also

enormously chivalrous and guarded his enemies. Right. So, I mean, you know, it's sort of almost a happily ever after for Abd al-Qaeda, you know, the hero in Damascus. But what about Algeria? What about, you know, the French, what about what he's left behind? So, look, that's what we're going to concentrate on. Suffice to say that after this surrender, and now France has really properly got a colony and crushed resistance in North Africa, you will see the arrival of a million European settlers, the black feed, the Piaenroix. And what you will see very quickly is this stratification of Algerian society. It's going to leave Algerian Muslims as second-class citizens. You're going to have two wars that will make this majority see.

Actually, the French aren't unbeatable, and I'm talking about World War II, and I'm talking about the Vietnamese uprising that takes place. It shows them, actually, you know what, the Pierre Noir can walk out the door. Anyway, you'll have to wait and see, but this is going to be a corking series. Until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. A goodbye from me, William Duremple. A quick word for our Empire listeners. For a limited time only, we are running a discount on the Empire Club.

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