The Military and Colonial Destruction of the Roman Landscape of North Africa, 1830–1900 History of Warfare
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The Military and Colonial Destruction of the Roman Landscape of North Africa, 1830–1900 History of Warfare VOLUME 98 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hw The Military and Colonial Destruction of the Roman Landscape of North Africa, 1830–1900 By Michael Greenhalgh LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: Delamare’s view of the French occupying Sétif, housed in tents, and with Roman ruins all around, including a cistern in the foreground, and the late antique walls to the rear. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greenhalgh, Michael. The military and colonial destruction of the Roman landscape of North Africa, 1830–1900 / by Michael Greenhalgh. pages cm. — (History of warfare ; volume 98) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-24840-3 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-90-04-27163-0 (e-book) 1. Classical antiquities—Destruction and pillage—Algeria—History—19th century. 2. Algeria—Antiquities, Roman. 3. France—Colonies—Algeria. 4. Algeria—History—1830–1962 I. Title. DT281.G74 2014 939’.703—dc23 2014007083 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1385-7827 isbn 978 90 04 24840 3 (hardback) isbn 978 90 04 27163 0 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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Contents Preface ix Setting the Scene: Algeria in Context 1 1 The French Conquest 14 Introduction 14 Planning & Logistics 15 A Lack of Knowledge 16 A Lack of Planning 18 Logistics and Supply 20 Political and Military Control 25 The Dépôt de la Guerre and Reconnaissances 29 Occupying the Ground 32 The French as Successors to the Romans 32 Roman Monuments and French Defences 38 Surviving within Roman Structures 41 Agriculture Roman and 19th-century 43 Health and Welfare 48 Civilising the Natives? 48 Fighting the Natives 51 Dealing with Colons and Speculators 55 Colonisation or Abandonment? 58 Reactions to the Occupation 60 Scholars and Commissions 60 A Forgotten Colony and War? 65 The French-Language Press in Paris 66 The Press in Britain and Germany 67 The French-Language Press in Algeria 68 Conclusion 69 2 The Army Establishes Itself, Colonisation Begins 75 The Army, Colonists and Roads 75 Security 76 Building or Repairing the Infrastructure 77 Builders, Competence and Algerian Conditions 77 Forts and Fortresses Roman and French 82 Accommodation for Body and Spirit 86 vi contents Byzantine Fortresses and French Scholarship 87 Defences for Arabs and Colons 89 Fountains and Water Supply 92 The Arabs and Water 94 The French and Water 99 Water Capture and Storage 102 Road, Bridge and Farm Building with Antiquities 109 Prehistoric Antiquities 112 Conclusion: Water and Roads 113 3 1830–40: The Destruction of Algiers, Constantine and other Early Settlements 119 Algiers (Capitulated 5 July 1830) 121 Constantine (Occupied 13 October 1837) 125 Médéa (Occupied 1830) 133 Arzew/Arzeu (Occupied 1833) 133 Bougie (Occupied 1833) 134 Guelma (Occupied 10 November 1836) 137 Tlemcen etc (Occupied 1836) 141 Philippeville and Stora (Occupied 8 October 1838) 145 Sétif (First Entered 15 December 1838) 150 Milah (Occupied 1838) 155 Cherchel (Occupied by Valée 15 March 1840) 155 Force majeure, plus ça change . 159 4 Ruins, Roads and Railways 165 The Largest Quantity of Roman Ruins outside Asia Minor 165 North African Sites Occupied or Unoccupied 167 Officers and Soldiers Digging Together 181 Roads 184 Roman Roads in Algeria and Tunisia 185 French Roads in Algeria and Tunisia 187 Transport without Roads 189 New Roads, or Refurbished Roman Roads? 191 Railways 197 The Ponts et Chaussées 201 5 Epigraphy, Topography and Mapping 208 The Army’s uses for Roman Inscriptions 210 Army Camps, Route Marches and Inscriptions 211 Inscriptions in Mosques and Houses 214 Milestones 216 contents vii Léon Renier, Inscriptions and the Mission Civilisatrice 217 Inscriptions and International Recognition 220 Professionals versus Amateurs 225 Inscriptions versus Ruins 227 Ruins Undescribed 232 Inscriptions versus Archaeology 234 Inscriptions and Museums versus Settlers and Entrepreneurs 236 Destroy the Stone – but Let me Transcribe it First! 239 Mapping, Antiquities and Reconnaissances 242 Map-making in France 242 Early Map-making in Algeria 243 Confusion and Delay 248 The Brigades Topographiques and Antiquities 250 Centuriation Unrecognised 254 A Nest of Puzzles 257 6 The Army Rebuilds Tebessa (First visited 1842) 262 The Site and its Monuments 262 The French Occupy the Site 264 Extensive Building Work Begins 266 Destruction by Ledger 269 7 Building European Towns from the 1840s 275 European Town Plans 276 Building with Ruins 277 French-Occupied Sites and their Transformation 278 Orléansville (Settled 1843) 279 Lambessa (First Visited during 1844) 280 Aumale (Occupied 1846) 285 Tipasa (Occupied 1854) 286 Le Kef (Occupied 1881) 288 Sfax (Occupied 1881) 290 Sousse (Garrisoned 1881) 290 Histoire du vandalisme: Les monuments détruits de l’art français 292 8 Planting Colonies 299 The Bureaux Arabes 302 The Mitidja 306 Villages and Farms 308 Agricultural Colonies 309 Arab Villages 311 French Villages 314 viii contents Seriana: Documented Destruction 320 Farms 323 Si Monumentum Requiris . 325 9 Algeria and Tunisia on Display 329 Triumphalism and Collecting 329 Collections of Roman Art in France and North Africa 332 Hindsight: Napoleonic Art 335 Ideas and Algerian Propaganda 336 Representing Algeria and Tunisia: Exhibitions and Museums 341 Restoring the Ancient Monuments? 345 Museums 348 Conclusion: “Là où nous passons, tout tombe” 356 Appendix: A Timeline and Some Statistics 364 Bibliography 370 Sources 370 Modern Scholars 413 Index 425 Illustrations Preface Geographical Range: Although the main focus of this book is Algeria and Tunisia (French from 1881), very occasional attention is paid to adjacent Morocco, plus Tripolitania further east, since Roman North Africa covered all these areas. Date Range: Although earlier travellers’ accounts will be employed to paint a picture of the landscape before the French arrived, accounts from the French army and civil- ians provide the main sources. There is little point in scanning in detail beyond 1900, by when the majority of settlements were in existence. Nor does the First World War form a suitable cutoff, since the manpower needed for the conflict meant a diminu- tion of archaeological activity. However, several publications of 1930, produced to mark the centenary of the conquest, appear below and offer assessments of the French achievement. Measures, currency, spelling, titles: Distances in the sources are sometimes given in leagues, and French lieues are a moveable feast, with one league approximately four kilometres – a further useful indication of the frequent vagueness about distances until maps and distances in kilometres (abbreviated as km) were suitably entrenched toward the end of the 19th century. Hectares are abbreviated as “ha.” One franc in 1830 = €2.2; in 1850 = €2.53; in 1860 €1.99, and in 1900 €2.37. Many spellings of sites vary from author to author (e.g. Blida/Blidah, Cherchel/Cherchell, Tebessa/Tébessa, Tipasa/ Tipaza, Medea/Médéah/Médéa), but have been left as written. I have often left French military ranks as I found them; they do not in every case have exact English-language equivalents, and the French ranks themselves varied over time. Footnotes and endnotes: This book in both its printed and e-book versions divides referencing between footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes at the bottom of the page are reserved for references to modern scholarship, except in those few case where there is lengthy quotation, in which case the material appears as a endnote. Endnotes, which appear at the end of each chapter, are used to provide extensive material from pre- 1914 source or background material, backups (as it were) for statements which would encumber the text unnecessarily. In the printed book, the endnote references, flagged by square brackets, appear as simply author-date-page references, which the reader if so inclined can then chase up via the bibliography. This also applies to references to the army archives at Vincennes (Service Historique de la Défense – SHD), which appear simply as carton references in the printed book, but in full (with details of indi- vidual carton items, and often quotations) in the e-book. x preface The full endnotes available for the e-book are a particular feature of this book. They offer some 300,000 words of source quotations and documentation, enlarging on the explication of the book’s themes which appear in the text itself. As will be seen, quota- tions in the text usually form part of endnotes – but only part, because the fuller con- text of ideas and opinions of which the quote is a part will help the reader to a better understanding of the material. In other words, although one cannot write about the past without interpreting it, such source quotations are an attempt to let the past have its own say.