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The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870

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The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870 The Civilizing Sea: The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Dzanic, Dzavid. 2016. The Civilizing Sea: The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33840734 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Civilizing Sea: The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870 A dissertation presented by Dzavid Dzanic to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts August 2016 © 2016 - Dzavid Dzanic All rights reserved. Advisor: David Armitage Author: Dzavid Dzanic The Civilizing Sea: The Ideological Origins of the French Mediterranean Empire, 1789-1870 Abstract This dissertation examines the religious, diplomatic, legal, and intellectual history of French imperialism in Italy, Egypt, and Algeria between the 1789 French Revolution and the beginning of the French Third Republic in 1870. In examining the wider logic of French imperial expansion around the Mediterranean, this dissertation bridges the Revolutionary, Napoleonic, Restoration (1815-30), July Monarchy (1830-48), Second Republic (1848-52), and Second Empire (1852-70) periods. Moreover, this study represents the first comprehensive study of interactions between imperial officers and local actors around the Mediterranean. I argue that local responses to invasions and threats of invasion—rooted in new interpretations of Islam, Catholicism, and regional political traditions—framed the emergence and durability of the French Mediterranean Empire. This dissertation also bridges the often-bifurcated northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean and it shows that a struggle over new ideas of legitimacy accompanied the building of the French Mediterranean Empire. More specifically, I trace the ways in which French officers and diplomats used the Roman imperial legacy in the Mediterranean in order to claim that they had embarked on a “civilizing mission” in the basin. Moreover, I examine the religious ideas used by local populations who reacted to French empire building. This dissertation demonstrates that local religious opposition to iii French imperialism played a large role in undermining the spread of French rule in Italy, Egypt, and Algeria before 1830. However, this study also shows that the rise of a large group of Algerian notables who justified French rule through Islamic texts in the decades that followed the French invasion of Algiers in 1830 facilitated the nesting of French empire building along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The partial overcoming of the religious obstacle to French rule in turn facilitated a number of archeological missions and the exploration of oases deep in the Algerian Sahara between the 1850s and 1870s. I argue that these exploratory missions transformed the French imperial ideology, first by making the Roman imperial legacy its main hallmark after the 1840s, and then by changing it into a more universal ideology of cultural and commercial transformation once French explorers crossed the frontier marked by Roman ruins in the Algerian desert. Overall, therefore, this dissertation demonstrates that a Mediterranean strategy emerged between 1789 and 1870 and that it both centered French empire building around the basin and reframed France’s global ambitions. iv Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii! Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v! Notes on Style ................................................................................................................... vii! Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ viii! List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... x! Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1! I. The Mediterranean Strategy ..................................................................................................... 8! II. Religion and the Mediterranean Strategy ............................................................................. 21! III. France’s mare nostrum and the Civilizing Mission ............................................................ 27! IV. Outline of Chapters ............................................................................................................. 35! PART I: THE POST-REVOLUTIONARY MEDITERRANEAN, 1789-1815 ......... 40! Chapter 1. “La furia filosofica scuote i suoi serpenti”: Catholicism and French Rule in Italy, 1789-1806 ........................................................................................................... 41! I. Italian Reactions to the French Revolution ............................................................................ 45! II. Catholic Liberty and the Civic Oath ..................................................................................... 57! III. The Roman Constitutional Oath .......................................................................................... 70! IV. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 84! Chapter 2. “Like a Swarm of Locusts”: Islam and French Imperialism in Egypt, 1798-1801 ......................................................................................................................... 88! I. France and the Roman Imperial Legacy in the Mediterranean after 1789 ............................. 95! II. Islam, the Diw!n, and Political Legitimacy in Napoleonic Egypt ...................................... 105! III. Al-Jabart! and the Legitimacy of Non-Islamic Rule ......................................................... 121! IV. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 135! PART II: THE CONSULAR MEDITERRANEAN, 1789-1830 ............................... 138! Chapter 3. “Ti non sapir que mi star patrone grande”: Consular Imperialism and International Law in Algeria, 1789-1815 .................................................................... 139! I. The Post-Revolutionary Mediterranean and Algeria ........................................................... 143! II. The 1801 Peace Treaty and the Quest for Empire .............................................................. 151! III. The Limits of Consular Imperialism and the Conquest of North Africa ........................... 168! IV. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 183! Chapter 4. The Bourbon Mediterranean and the droit des gens in Algeria, 1815-1830 ......................................................................................................................................... 188! I. Restoring the Mediterranean and French Sovereignty in Algeria ........................................ 192! II. Post-Napoleonic Congresses and the droit des gens in Algeria ......................................... 202! III. The Bourbon Mediterranean and the End of Consular Imperialism ................................. 212! IV. Resurrecting Rome in the Algerian Concessions .............................................................. 223! V. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 235! PART III: THE ROMAN MEDITERRANEAN, 1830s-1870s ................................. 238! Chapter 5. “Il ne pourrait se faire obéir à une telle distance”: The Theology of Collaboration in French Algeria, 1830-52 .................................................................. 239! v I. French Conquest, Regional Resistance, and the Rise of Indigenous Allies ......................... 244! II. The Consolidation of France’s Indigenous Allies .............................................................. 257! III. The Triumph of the Theology of Collaboration ................................................................ 269! IV. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 282! Chapter 6. Rome Resurrected: North Africa and the French mare nostrum, 1830s- 1870s ............................................................................................................................... 285! I. Governors General, the Roman Legacy, and Absolute Domination .................................... 290! II. The Scientific Commission and Roman Africa .................................................................. 302! III. The Algerian South and the French mare nostrum
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