Blow the fly whisk
The blow with the fly whisk was an incident in 1827 at a reception of the Algerian Deys Hussein , which served as the occasion for the French occupation of Algeria .
prehistory
To finance his Italian campaign , Napoléon had obtained a sum of one million francs in 1796 through the Paris-based trading company Bacri and Busnach , these entrepreneurs were native Algerian Jews and had made other profitable business with the French during the Egyptian campaign (1798-1801). The grain trades had been used by the French middlemen involved to their own advantage, the repayment of the remaining debt should now finally succeed with the help of the Dey.
After Napoleon's abdication, the Algerian creditors repeatedly demanded this sum back from France, but both Louis XVIII refused . as well as Charles X. to repay this considerable amount of money.
The affront
On April 29, 1827, Dey Hussein gave a reception on the occasion of Ramadan , to which the French consul Pierre Deval also appeared. Dey Hussein approached the consul about the horrendous debt and demanded a reason for the French government's negative attitude. Deval then replied "that his government would not answer under any circumstances because it considered it useless". In response to this affront, Dey Hussein hit the consul three times with his fly whisk and directed him out of the building.
aftermath
The events were also passed down by a German, the Rheinhessen doctor and adventurer Simon Friedrich Pfeiffer , in his travel and life descriptions. Pfeiffer had been captured by Algerian pirates years earlier and was living as a body slave in the service of an Algerian court official. He learned the Arabic language and was thus able to note further events from an Arabic perspective. Pfeiffer describes the further course.
The ambassador immediately went to his country house near Algiers , where he met and conferred with diplomats from some of the European states allied with France and handed over the official duties to the ambassador of Sardinia . On the same day, the ambassador was picked up by a French ship that had unexpectedly arrived in port. Pfeiffer already suspected that the ambassador had deliberately staged this diplomatic scandal to give the French a reason for later military operations. At first, France limited itself to a sea blockade of the port of Algiers and thus achieved an anti-Dey mood among the population. The blockade ships were finally driven out by an Algerian commando.
Position reference
After the departure of the French, the ambassador of the Sultan of Constantinople had several conversations with the Dey. The Dey was supposed to march an army of 40,000 men in support of the Sultan in order to be able to end the war with Russia victoriously. Afterwards one would also "settle" with the French. The Dey misunderstood his situation and later rejected all offers of help from the Sultan and other Arab princes.
The French government took the abuse of April 29, 1827 against the honor of France as an opportunity to declare war on the barbarian states - but above all on the Dey of Algiers - after thorough logistical preparation and armament of the army .
War preparation
The French fleet , which was concentrated in the Mediterranean Sea , mostly in the port of Toulon , consisted of 200 warships and 500 transport and supply ships. The company had already been betrayed to the Dey by spies, and the fleet was driven off its direct course by unfavorable weather conditions and first reached the Balearic Islands. Some of the ships began to hunt the Algerian pirate fleet in the western Mediterranean. The greater part of the fleet transferred a 37,000-strong land army of General Bourmont on the Algerian coast in June . The landing took place on June 17, 1830 in the bay of Sidi Ferrusch , about 30 kilometers west of Algiers.
War events
The entire Algerian coastal fortresses had already been prepared for battle on the order of Deys, and the small sea fortress at Sidi Ferruch was taken by storm. The landing of the entire French landing group was further delayed because the ships also needed for the attack on the port of Algiers had not arrived in time.
On the other side, the fighting mobilized the Ottoman and Algerian troops located in a wide area around Algiers. According to Pfeiffer's report, the Dey was able to reinforce his own positions weeks before the arrival of the French fleet and welcome further auxiliary troops of the Kabyle and Arab volunteers, in total he had around 50,000 men under arms.
While the French army was still on the march, minor skirmishes began on the outer lines of the battlefield. The Dey also had a strategically important elevation under control and caused great damage to the French from an artillery position. Through practiced maneuvers and more modern weapons technology, the French finally won their first victory, the demoralized Algerians and their auxiliary troops fled to the fortifications of the city of Algiers or to the hinterland. A courageously led counterattack by the Algiers was able to hold the French back from the storm on the city, followed by cannonade and bombing of Algiers for several days. The mighty imperial fortress of Algiers was destroyed by a direct hit, and the fate of the capital was sealed.
Outcome of the war
A few days later the Dey had to sign the surrender and hand over Algiers.
Pfeiffer also owed his release from slavery to the victorious French.
consequences
In the years that followed, the military operation turned into the colonial occupation of Algeria , which only ended in 1962. With the victory over the pirates, sea trade with the Mediterranean countries was secured.
literature
- Simon Friedrich Pfeiffer: My travels and my five-year imprisonment in Algiers . Giessen 1834, p. 96 ( full text (PDF) as digitized version).
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Simon Friedrich Pfeiffer: My travels and my five-year imprisonment in Algiers . Giessen 1834, p. 119-129 .
- ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Mayer, Evi Kästner: The Dey of Algiers. Pirate states on the Mediterranean. Cannons against fly whisk . In: history with a kick . Issue 2. Sailer, 1999, ISSN 0173-539X , p. 11-14 .
- ^ Gerhard Höpp: Algeria, Liberation War. 1954-1952 ; P. 3
- ^ Algeria (history) . In: Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon 1894–1896, Volume 1, p. 394.