Chapter XXXV: Recriminations and Executions

The ten days which elapsed between the occupation of the city of Tunis and the start of the columns for Kairwán were peculiarly unhappy for all parties to the Tunisian Question. Public opinion in France became day by day more alive to the grim humour of the situation, and it was difficult to tell whether General Farre or M. Barthélémy Saint-Hilaire came in for the greater share of sarcasm and abuse. The Ministers were in constant trepidation as to whether the Arabs would allow them to serve up the taking of Kairwán as a second _plat de la gloire_ at the opening of the Chambers, and M. Camille Pelletan was busy at Tunis laying bare the profligate corruption of the Roustan _entourage_ for future use in the tribune and the witness-box. Typhoid fever and dysentery were decimating the French ranks at Manouba and the Goletta, and the pleasant palace of General Kheir-ed-Din on the shores of the Mediterranean, which the Société Marseillaise had gratefully placed at the disposal of Madame Elias Musalli in the halcyon days of the Protectorate, was now converted into a fever hospital, and was affording the most damning statistics for the able pen and caustic criticism of M. Le Faure. The “Epoca” kept all Italy in continued merriment over French tribulation in Tunis, and the Italians began to see in the increasing perplexities of their neighbours in Africa the Nemesis of Marseilles. At Tunis itself matters were hardly less complicated than at Paris; the Bey had lost Mustapha and his capital, and would not be consoled, and the obstinacy of despair had taken the place of the complacency of the conquered. The demands of M. Roustan were now met with threats of abdication, and it became evident that unless Mustapha was restored to his arms, the machinery of the Protectorate would soon come to a deadlock. Meanwhile Taib Bey had declared war against M. Roustan, and was fast creating a powerful party in his own favour. The Minister Resident now learned the inexpediency of playing with the folly and vanity of a weak man: Frenchmen in Tunis were divided pretty evenly into the Sadekians and Taibians, and waged a relentless war against each other of invective and personality. While M. Roustan was employed in reassuring M. Saint-Hilaire, cajoling the Bey, and fighting the Taibist faction, the real influence at the Bardo Palace fell into the hands of General Musalli, under whose auspices a channel of circumlocution was devised which beggars all description; and it will hardly be believed that in describing it, I am speaking in sober seriousness of a country enjoying the inestimable blessings of a mission of civilisation all to itself. To transact any sort of business with the Tunisian Government it was now necessary to apply in the first instance to a Jew china-dealer in the Tunis bazaar. If the preliminary arrangements were satisfactory, the crockery merchant placed the matter before his wife, who interested her brother the Tunisian Mint-Master, who in turn consulted his wife, who communicated on the subject with General Elias Musalli, who spoke to Madame Musalli, who finally explained the affair to M. Roustan. It must be remembered that all this was going on whilst the military cemeteries at Manouba and Goletta were growing apace; while French blood was being shed near Susa and in the defiles of Zaghouán, and while the lives of innocent Maltese and Italian labourers were being sacrificed to the fury of a wantonly provoked race hatred. I bring no charge of corruption against the Minister Resident; I am even told he is still “a very poor man.” If this is so, it is singularly unfortunate that the French Republic ever trusted her destinies to one who, by his own showing, became the veriest dupe of designing men and women.

This, then, was the state of things at Tunis during the first three weeks of October 1881. The fast increasing camp at Manouba did not seem to overawe the Arabs in the interior, nor did the frequent reconnaissances of General Sabatier from Zaghouán effect any pacification beyond what he himself called the zone of his operations. On the very day the French entered Tunis, the British Consular Agent at Hammamet wrote as follows:—“As nearly all the soldiers composing the French garrison were disabled by fever, the place was evacuated. No sooner were the ships out of sight than the Arabs sacked the villages of Menzel and Suleiman, ravaged the country again up to the walls of the town itself, and forced our servants who went in search of fodder to return in haste to Hammamet. During two months I have lost all my camels, besides 800 goats and 500 sheep.”

A fortnight later an event occurred on the railway, which took me once more to Medjez-el-Bab, from which I wrote the following letter:—

MEDJEZ-EL-BAB, _October 25_.

To-day the partial interruption of the French Railway service will cease, and to-morrow, for the first time since the ill-fated 30th of September, the trains will run along the whole length of the line from Tunis to Ghardimaou. A desire to learn something of the fate of the two Arabs who were shot yesterday at kilomètre 37 induced me to pay another visit to Medjez. Every station is now guarded by French soldiers, patrols of cavalry will pass continually from Tunis to Beja and from Beja to Ghardimaou, and the possibility of any further serious attack on the line will be thus avoided. The recriminations between the military authorities and the railway officials as to their respective share of blame for the calamity at Oued Zerga are exciting much attention. In the first flush of excitement General Logerot was very unanimously censured for failing to occupy the line, but it now appears that all the information possessed by the railway officials as to the disturbed state of the Arabs was intentionally withheld from him, and that when he proposed to garrison the stations, he was told that the soldiers could only travel as passengers. This objection gave rise to a prolonged discussion, and it is now clear that the sacrifice of life and property between Medjez and Beja was mainly occasioned by a miserable haggling between the civil and military authorities as to the expenditure of a few thousand francs. As to the part played in this matter by the manager of the line, the following document, which was found half burnt in the ruined station at Oued Zerga, speaks for itself:—

“GENERAL CIRCULAR 68.

“The station-masters on the line are forbidden to correspond telegraphically or by letter with the military authorities, or to furnish them with facts or rumours relating to the public safety. The station-masters must correspond directly with the manager, who will inform the competent authorities in case of necessity. The railway servants are requested only to communicate such facts as are previously verified by themselves, and are recommended to attach no importance to false news and alarming rumours, which in most cases have no other object than to disturb the public peace.

(Signed) “AUBERT, _Engineer and Manager_.

“_Tunis, 13th September_ 1881.”

During the 28th and 29th of September the officers at Tunis were inundated with reports as to the hostile attitude of the Arabs around Zerga; M. Raimbert even demurred to remaining there the evening before his death, and when taunted with cowardice, answered, “Then I am going to my destruction;” and several _employés_ quitted their posts rather than continue on the threatened portion of the line. M. Aubert made no communication to General Logerot; and everybody knows the result. As I have often pointed out, the apparently chronic disagreement between military and civil authorities has entailed some of the most calamitous mistakes and grossest blunders which have characterised the Tunisian campaign.

The Railway Company seems now anxious to atone for its former want of energy. On the morning of Sunday (October 23) some Arabs were observed placing a stone on the line in the vicinity of Tabourba. The train returned to that place, and having obtained a military escort, the railway officials promptly repaired to the spot in question. After a chase two Arabs were captured in the neighbourhood, who were identified by the engine-driver as being among the offenders. It seems unlikely that the Arabs who really committed the crime, and who must have learnt by the return of the train that they were detected, should have hung about the locality in order to be captured, and the Caid of Tabourba assured the French authorities that he personally knew the accused as unoffending and peaceable shepherds, but they were promptly conveyed to Tunis and brought before General Japy. They were at once sentenced to die on the scene of their alleged offence. A special train was prepared, which brought the prisoners to Tabourba, where the respectable inhabitants of the town were ordered to be in attendance. They were imperatively invited to enter one of the carriages, and travel to kilomètre 37, where they would witness the execution of their co- religionists. Soon after their arrival, the two Arabs were shot by a platoon of French soldiers, the prisoners being secured in the middle of the permanent way, and the mufti, head-man, and other notables of Tabourba, being compelled to look on from the top of the cutting. The heads of the supposed culprits were then struck off and fixed on two poles on the side of the line _pour encourager les autres_. Just after the men had been shot, the train from Medjez was observed to be approaching. A guard was sent on to stop it. It happened to contain two companies of infantry, sent on the previous day from Manouba to Medjez, owing to a rumour of an impending Arab attack on that place. The guard who stopped the train could only speak French imperfectly, and all that was intelligible were the words “Arab attack.” The officer in command at once directed his soldiers to descend and advance in skirmishing order. They perceived the unfortunate notables of Tabourba on an eminence, and it was only just as they were about to fire on them that they perceived the French in the hollow, and a very sad sequel to the former tragedy was thus averted. I saw the two heads at kilomètre 37 as I passed on to Medjez yesterday. The impression produced by the occurrence is a very unfortunate one. The haste with which the proceedings were conducted greatly tends to confirm the assertion of the Arabs that the case in question was merely an example of the indiscriminate punishment which they allege is being dealt out to them all over the country, and makes them entertain very serious doubt as to the reality of the promises contained in the Saussier manifesto.

(Dessin de M. de Haenen, d’après le croquis de M. Dick.)]