Chapter V: Spanish Supremacy

No sooner had the Spaniards quitted Tunis than insurrections broke out against their ally, Mouley Hasan, in different parts of the country. Holy Kairwán at once set the example by stoutly refusing to recognise a prince who owed his throne to Christian intervention. The Sicilian troops sent by the Emperor in 1537 to Susa were repulsed, and it was not till two years afterwards that Andrea Doria succeeded in re-establishing the authority of Mouley Hasan in the towns of the Tunisian littoral. An attempt to crush the rising of Sidi Arfa in Kairwán wholly failed, and the corsair Dragut became the acknowledged ruler of Susa, Sfax, and Galippia. In the following year (1540) Doria once more recovered Susa for Mouley Hasan, who nevertheless resolved to proceed to Europe in the hope of persuading the Emperor to undertake a second expedition on his behalf. No sooner had he left Tunis than his son and heir, Mouley Hamíd, seized on the supreme power, and added the difficulties of a civil war to those surrounding the already half-lost cause of the Beni Hafs. His father hastened back to the Goletta, but he fell into the power of the usurper, who caused him to be blinded and loaded with chains. Mouley Hamíd was in turn overthrown by his uncle Abd-el-Malek, and a conflict ensued during which Dragut once more obtained possession of the Tunisian coast towns. On the 10th September 1551 Don Juan de Vega took Mehdia or Africa, and established his nephew, Don Alvar, as its governor at the head of 1500 men. Mehdia was given provisionally to the Maltese Order, but it was finally abandoned and its fortifications destroyed in 1553. Seven years later a Spanish legion was literally annihilated in the island of Djerba. The pyramid of skulls which served to commemorate this Arab triumph was only removed in 1846. Mouley Hamíd, who again recovered his throne from his cousin, Muhamed, son of Abd-el-Malek, was attacked and defeated by Ali Pacha, the Turkish governor of Algiers, on the plains of Beja, and was compelled to take refuge with the Spanish garrison at Goletta. He in his turn was forced to supplicate Philip II. to send an army to Tunis, in order to uphold the last representative of the Beni Hafs, and expel Caïd Ramdan, the agent of Ali Pacha. The Emperor determined to crush for ever the Turkish power in North Africa, and intrusted the execution of his design to his natural son, Don Juan of Austria. The fortifications of Goletta were strengthened, and a garrison of 4000 men occupied the citadel of Tunis. Mouley Hamíd, becoming alarmed at these proceedings, endeavoured to draw back, and the Spaniards were obliged to select a more docile instrument. Their choice fell on his brother Muhamed, the Taib Bey of three centuries ago. A Minister Resident was found for him in the person of the Count de Cerballon, who played precisely the same part recently allotted to M. Roustan. “The prince,” writes one of the annalists of Tunis, “was forced to share his power with De Cerballon, who sat by his side when he administered justice, suggested the decisions to be pronounced, and at times even compelled him to obey his orders.” Meanwhile the Turkish troops, under Hyder Pacha, had withdrawn to Kairwán, and waited patiently the course of events.