IN THE NAME OF GOD THE COMPASSIONATE THE MERCIFUL
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THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
*Subject: The Battle of Al Maktaa
*Date: The 28th of June 1835
*Place: Al Maktaa, Oran, Algeria
*Elapsed Time: Day for Day: 174 Years
*Main Historic Figure: Emir Abdel Kader.
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The battle of El Mactaa or Al Maktaa with the one that followed a year after at Sidi Brahim in Constantine is among the landmark event during the Great epic of the Founder of the Algerian modern state, but much to our chagrin the field that had known this glorious and memorable battle is but a barren land surrounded by wild bushes and watermelon sellers, not even a commemorative plaque symbolizes this Historic event, “History is a People’s memory and without a memory , Man is demoted to the lower of animals” ,thus eloquently said the late Malcolm X.
In a bid to provoke new hostilities in the aftermath of the severe defeat at Al Maktaa, the French deliberately broke the Tafna treaty in 1839, and Emir Abd al Kader had no alternative but to take arms and announce the holy war again, he destroyed the French settlements on the Mitidja Plain, and at one point advanced to the outskirts of Algiers itself.
He struck where the French were weakest and retreated when they advanced against him in greater strength. The government moved from camp to camp with the Emir and his army. Gradually, however, superior French resources and manpower and the defection and betrayal of tribal chieftains took their toll.
Reinforcements poured into Algeria after 1840 until Bugeaud had at his disposal 108,000 men, one-third of the French army. Bugeaud's strategy was to destroy Abd Al Kader's bases, then to starve the population by destroying its means of subsistence crops, orchards, and herds. On several occasions, French troops burned or asphyxiated noncombatants hiding from the terror in caves.
One by one, the Emir's strongholds fell to the French, and many of his ablest commanders were killed or captured so that by 1843 the Muslim state of Algeria had collapsed. Abd Al Kader took refuge with his ally, the sultan of Morocco, Abd Arrahman II, and launched raids into Algeria. However, Abd Al Kader seeing that all means have been exhausted and having no other alternative what soever,while mostly fearing about the life of innocent civilians was obliged to surrender to the commander of Oran Province, General Louis de Lamoricière, on the 21st of December 1847.
Nevertheless , Emir Abd Al Kader after a 17 year continuing struggle and Jihad where he had to face more than 120 Generals, 4 Princes and 16 Ministers of War , was at last promised safe conduct to Egypt or Palestine if his followers laid down their arms and kept the peace. He accepted these conditions, but the minister of war who years earlier as general in Algeria had been badly defeated by Abd al Kader had him consigned to prison in France.
In 1852, Louis Napoleon, the president of the Second French Republic who would soon establish the Second Empire as Napoleon III, freed Abd Al Kader, the latter moved in 1855 from the Byrsa, the citadel area of Carthage, to Damascus, There, in 1860, Abd Al Kader intervened to save the lives of an estimated 12,000 Christians, including the French consul and staff, during a massacre instigated by a row between Druze Muslims and Maronite Christians.
The French government, in appreciation, conferred on him the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor, and additional honors followed from a number of other European governments. Declining all invitations to return to public life, he devoted himself to scholarly pursuits and charity until his death in Damascus on the 26th of May 1883.
Abd Al Kader is recognized and venerated as the first hero of Algerian independence. Not without cause, his green and white standard was adopted by the Algerian liberation movement during the War of Independence (1954-1962) and became the national flag of independent Algeria. The Algerian government brought his remains back to Algeria to be interred with much ceremony on July 5, 1966, the fourth anniversary of independence and the 136th anniversary of the French conquest. A Mosque and a University bearing his name have been constructed as National shrines in Constantine.
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