Djidjelli expedition | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
French expedition to Djidjelli, 1664 | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Regency of Algiers | Kingdom of France Knights Hospitaller | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Mohammed Bey | Louis XIV François de Vendôme, Duc de Beaufort Charles-Félix de Galéan, Count of Gadagne | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown | Kingdom of France : 5,650 men [1] [2] 14 vessels [2] 8 galleys [2] Knights Hospitaller : 1 battalion [3] 7 galleys | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
500 dead 200 wounded | 2,000 killed 30 cast-iron cannon 15 iron cannon 50 mortars |
The Djidjelli expedition [4] was a 1664 military expedition by Louis XIV to seize the port of Djidjelli and establish a naval base against the Barbary corsairs. There was a disagreement among the leaders of the expedition as to what its objectives should be. Ultimately the town of Djidjelli was taken easily, but after three months, heavily besieged and deprived of reinforcements by an outbreak of plague, the French abandoned the city and returned home.
The young king Louis XIV wanted to safeguard trade by the French merchant navy, which was continually being attacked by Barbary Coast pirates coming from the regencies of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, under Ottoman administration and protection. [5]
The expedition chose to attack a city halfway between Algiers and Tunis. The plan was to seize and fortify it, using it as an advance post for attacks against the corsairs, as the English were then doing from Tangier. They considered Bougie, Bône and Stora, near a French commercial outpost known as the Bastion de France, but eventually chose Djidjelli. This choice led to conflict between the commander of the expedition, his second in command, and the engineer in charge of fortifications. Even before the expedition embarked there was a disagreement between the Duke of Beaufort and the Count of Gadagne who wished to disembark at Bougie "then abandoned, better situated and more within reach of help than Djidjelli". [6]
The fleet mustered in Toulon on 2 July 1664 and made anchor at Bougie on 21 July after stopping in Menorca, where it was joined by Maltese galleys.
On the morning of 23 July 1664, the galleys advanced to shore and threatened the forces defending Djidjelli with their artillery, providing cover for the longboats (chaloupes) to ferry troops to shore near a landmark called le Marabout . [7] The choice of this landing place, which contained a shrine and a cemetery, prompted increased resistance from the inhabitants.
The disembarking army consisted of about 4000 men, and the Maltese battalion 1200 men. The order was as follows: first the Picardy regiment commanded by M. de Vivonne disembarked, and then the Count of Gadagne at the head of the Maltese battalion, then the Duke of Beaufort and Maréchal de camp La Guillotiere. [8] The royal troops took Djidjelli the same day without much difficulty. The Count of Vivonne met with stiffer resistance at Le Marabout, but the Kabyles soon abandoned their positions to retreat into the mountains and the expeditionary force set up camp for the night.
Heavy fighting took place the next day. The Moors were seen waving a white flag, so the order was given to cease fire. The French seized this opportunity to parley and establish friendly relations, but the Kabyles ambushed the expedition and caused serious casualties. [9] The intervention of the Maltese battalion under Charles-Félix de Galéan counterattacked and drove off the raiders. The expedition lost 400 men and the Moors lost as many on their own side.
The forces opposing the expedition were the Kabyles of the kingdom of Koukou and of Béni Abbès. Because they were opposed to the Regency of Algiers, they at first refused its offer of military assistance against the Europeans. [10] However, after failing to retake Djidjelli themselves they eventually allowed the troops of the bey of Constantine and of the Regency of Algiers to pass through their territories to reinforce them. [11] However an attack on the city by Kabyles was repulsed by the French on 6 October 1664.
On 20 September, to reinforce the initial expedition, a convoy of six vessels and six barques laden with foodstuffs left France for Africa. Military reinforcements followed shortly afterwards: Damien de Martel left Toulon on 18 October with a squadron consisting of the Dauphin (flagship), the Soleil, La Lune, the Notre-Dame, the Espérance (flûte) and the Triton (fireboat). He arrived in Djidjelli on 22 October carrying two cavalry companies from the regiment of Conti. [12] The convoy also brought a message from the king, who had been informed of the discord between the heads of the expedition. It commanded the Duke of Beaufort to leave command of operations to de Gadagne. Beaufort and his fleet therefore left Djidjelli for good on 22 October.
With the outbreak of plague in Toulon, the departure of any further reinforcements or supplies was cancelled. [13] Still besieged and judging Djidjelli too difficult to hold, the French demolished it's fortifications and abandoned it, taking ship during the night of 30–31 October 1664. [14] First to be taken aboard were the unreliable elements among the troops, who were "saying out loud that they were going to become Turks". [15] The retreat was carried out using Martel's vessels, which arrived in France on 22 October.
On its return to France, the fleet was sent into quarantine at île de Porquerolles by the Parlement de Provence because of the plague. La Lune , an old three-master, was already in pitiful condition and poorly-repaired. It broke in two and sank near Toulon, before the Îles d'Hyères, with ten companies of the Picardy regiment aboard. More than 700 men drowned, among them General de la Guillotière, one of the two maréchaux de camp of the Count de Gadagne. [16] [17] A hundred or so survivors managed to reach Port-Cros, but, abandoned on this desert island 7 km2, they all starved. The captain of the ship, fr:François de Livenne de Verdille, and Antoine Boësset de La Villedieu (aide de camp of General de la Guillotière) both managed to escape by swimming. There were only 24 survivors. [18]
On 25 August 1665, the Duke of Beaufort destroyed two Algerian corsair ships and captured three others. On one of the latter he found the artillery that had been abandoned at Djidjelli in October 1664. [19]
A peace treaty was signed between the Duke of Beaufort and the Regency of Tunis on 25 November 1665. A second treaty was concluded with the Regency of Algiers on 17 May 1666. However, it was not until after the bombardment of Algiers by Admiral Duquesne in 1682 that the comptoir français of the Bastion de France re-opened.
Pierre Adolphe Chéruel was a French historian.
The Regency of Algiers was a largely independent early modern Ottoman tributary state on the Barbary Coast of North Africa between 1516 and 1830. Founded by the privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, also known as Oruç and Khayr ad-Din, the Regency began as an infamous and formidable pirate base that plundered and waged maritime holy war on European Christian powers. Ottoman regents ruled as heads of a stratocracy; an autonomous military government controlled by the janissary corps, themed Garp ocaklarılit. 'Western Garrison' in Ottoman terminology.
The invasion of Algiers in 1830 was a large-scale military operation by which the Kingdom of France, ruled by Charles X, invaded and conquered the Deylik of Algiers.
The French conquest of Algeria took place between 1830 and 1903. In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a blockade, following which the July Monarchy of 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.
Louis Nicolas de Clerville, a.k.a. Chevalier de Clerville, held many military positions during his life in France in 1610–1677. He was associated with Pierre-Paul Riquet and the building of the Canal du Midi.
The capture of Peñón of Algiers was accomplished when the beylerbey of Algiers, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the fortress called Peñón of Algiers, on a small islet facing the Algerian city of Algiers from the Habsburg Spaniards.
The Battle of Wadi al-Laban occurred in March–April 1558 between Saadians and Ottoman Algerian forces under Hasan Pasha, the son of Hayreddin Barbarossa. It took place north of Fes, at Wadi al-Laban, an affluent of the Sebou River, one day north of Fes.
Igawawen or Gawawa, mostly known as Zwawa were a group of Kabyle tribes inhabiting the Djurdjura mountains, Greater Kabylia, in Algeria. The Zouaoua are a branch of the Kutama tribe of the Baranis Berbers.
Charles-Marie Denys, comte de Damrémont was a French general and military governor of French Algeria. He was killed in combat during the siege of Constantine.
The Kingdom of the Ait Abbas or Sultanate of the Beni Abbas was a Kabyle, Berber state of North Africa, then a fief and a principality, controlling Lesser Kabylie and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as "reino de Labes"; sometimes more commonly referred to by its ruling family, the Mokrani, in Berber At Muqran. Its capital was the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, an impregnable citadel in the Biban mountain range.
The bombardment of Algiers in 1683 was a French naval operation against the Regency of Algiers during the French-Algerian War 1681–88. It led to the rescue of more than 100 French prisoners, in some cases after decades of captivity, but the great majority of Christian captives in Algiers were not liberated.
The Mokrani Revolt was the most important local uprising against France in Algeria since the conquest in 1830.
The Battle of Chelif or Battle of Djidouia took place on 28 April 1701 on the banks of the Chelif River. It was fought between the armies of the Alaouite Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif and those of the Regency of Algiers commanded by the Bey of Mascara, Mustapha Bouchelaghem. It took place in the context of an attempt by the Alaouites to conquer the west of the Regency of Algiers, coordinated with an offensive by Tunis on the east of the Regency of Algiers in 1700 and 1701.
The French-Algerian War of 1681–1688 was part of a wider campaign by France against the Barbary Pirates in the 1680s.
The Campaign of Tlemcen (1551) was a military operation led by the Regency of Algiers under Hasan Pasha and his ally Abdelaziz, following the capture of Tlemcen by the Saadi Sultanate in June 1550.
The Raid on Reghaïa in May 1837, during the French conquest of Algeria, pitted the French colonizers in Reghaïa region against the Kabyle troops of the Igawawen confederacy.
Zawiyet Sidi Amar Cherif, or Zawiyet Sidi Daoud, is a zawiya school located in Boumerdès Province in Algeria.
The Shipwreck of Dellys took place in May 1830, during the French conquest of Algeria. It involved French troupes coloniales, under captains Félix-Ariel d'Assigny (1794-1846) and Armand Joseph Bruat (1796-1855), who were captured by the resistance fighters of the town of Dellys in Kabylia of the Igawawen.
Baba Ali, Also known as Bou Sebaa or Ali Melmouli or Baba Ali Neksîs was the 17th ruler and Dey of Algiers. He ruled for 11 years after his predecessor Mohamed Ibn Bekir.