Chapter XXVII: Loot

Mr. Galea once more comes to my assistance and lends me his journal to write the story of the sad sequel to the capitulation of Sfax. My readers must remember that he was an eye-witness of most of the facts to which he speaks, and in justice to him I must say that his narrative is fully borne out and corroborated, not only by Mr. Consular-Agent Leonardi’s official reports, but by a mass of evidence tendered before the International Commission appointed to investigate the circumstances on the spot. If this were not the case, I would willingly pass over in silence the disagreeable subject of the sacking which followed the shelling, and which has given rise to so much heart-burning on all sides. Loot in the hour of victory was not first invented at Sfax, its occurrence is the rule rather than the exception in the annals of warfare, and as few countries can fairly throw a stone in the matter, I fail to see that it in any way involves the national honour of France, or affects the reputation of anybody beyond those immediately concerned in the incident I am about to speak of. There can be no doubt whatever that the French soldiers who drove the Arabs out of Sfax on the 16th July 1881, followed up their triumph by an almost indiscriminate pillage of both the European and Arab quarters of the town. What was done happened in the face of day, and can neither be gainsaid or denied, and the subsequent attempts to minimise the transaction were at once unworthy and useless. Still more so is it censurable, to have postponed the relief of the sufferers indefinitely, and to endeavour to wring the compensation from the Arabs, who are nearly all the debtors of the persons who have been more or less ruined by the events in question. To my mind, these things are a far greater blemish to the good name of France than the excesses committed by her troops in the flush of success or the intoxication of conquest. With those few observations I return to Mr. Galea’s diary:—

“_July 17th._—This morning I went on shore, accompanied by my assistant, Mr. Leadbetter, and the master of the British ship ‘Agnes.’ My first visit (after attending the funeral of some of the French soldiers who had been killed) was paid, naturally enough, to my own business establishment. Everything movable had disappeared, and the yard was occupied by the French troops. Leaving the place, we next entered the European _faubourg_. Most of the houses were much damaged and knocked about by the shells, but on the pretext that some Arabs had fired from the dwelling of Mr. Gili (a Maltese merchant), an order had been given to break open the doors of every habitation in the quarter, and as soon as this was done a general pillage ensued. I was the unwilling witness of all that happened. The soldiers took or spoiled everything they could carry away, and broke or defaced what they were unable to move. None of the officers seemed at all disposed to interfere, and the whole business was a sad contrast to the measures taken by the insurgents to preserve our property, and was the more unjustifiable, as the Moorish quarter afforded a sufficiency of _butin_. The loss will of course fall on the British colony, and is a sad and unexpected aggravation of our privations during the past fortnight. Several liquor stores were emptied of their contents, and all I can say is that it is fortunate the Arabs did not resume the contest.

“_July 18th._—The loot continues unabated. An order has been issued forbidding soldiers to enter houses unauthorised, but nobody attends to it, nor is any attempt made to enforce it. I am, however, taking careful note of all that happens connected with this ruinous business. Caid Jelluli has not left the ‘Alma,’ but he has sent a letter, telling the Cadi and Mufti to come on board, at the head of a deputation of forty preceded by a white flag, to treat for terms, and informing them that unless they do so, the French will march into the gardens and attack everybody they come across.

“_July 19th._—This morning I went to visit the great mosque. Its minaret is disabled, and it is turned into a barrack. I saw the soldiers cooking in various parts of it. Throughout the Moorish town the traces of the sack were painful to witness. What was not carried away from the shops in the bazaars, was thrown out into the streets. I saw title-deeds, bonds, and valuable papers lying amidst heaps of groceries and piles of stuffs. Although the former could never be replaced, and their loss might injure Moors and Christians alike, several of these miscellaneous collections of litter were deliberately set on fire. Valuable Arabic MSS. were torn up and their pages distributed as souvenirs of the siege—and, I presume, the sacking—of Sfax.

“_July 20th._—The deputation demanded by Jelluli went out to the ‘Alma,’ and I believe all the Moors who will bring their families are to be allowed to return. At any rate in the evening several of the native residents perambulated the Arab town calling out in a loud voice that all persons concealed were to come out, and that those who did so would be safe. Some eighty men were collected by this means, and then conveyed as prisoners on board the men-of-war. Three houses, the inmates of which declined to comply with the invitation thus given, _were mined and blown up_. It is only now that one can gradually obtain details of what really happened on the eventful 16th July. In addition to the struggle in the town, it appears that there was a regular battle fought in the country outside it. Many well-known Arab chiefs died fighting bravely; Ghasim Ben Shirouda, lately Hlifa of the Mitelit, his brother Sheikh Salah, Ali Ben Ardorri, son of a Hlifa, Sheikh Sesi Ben Muhamed, Sheikh Seyd Ben Muhamed, and Muhamed Ben Hdir were all shot down. In this engagement the Neffet were commanded by Ali Ben Hlifa, and the Beni Zid by Sherif-ed- Din. The Mitelit were led by Ardorri Ben Amor. These tribes alone took an actual part in the engagement.

“_July 22d._—The mosque has been restored to the townspeople, but they seem in no hurry to take it. It will require a great deal of cleansing, and there is an unexploded shell still in the top of the damaged minaret, which indisposes the _muezzin_ to make the usual calls to prayer.

“_July 24th._—The French fleet (except the ‘Alma’) left for Gabes, and H.M.S. ‘Monarch’ for Susa.

“_July 25th._—We received to-day news of the occupation of Gabes yesterday. The inhabitants of the two villages near the shore, Jára and Menzel, have always hated each other, and generally differed in politics. In the present instance the former declared for the French, and the latter for the Holy War and the Prophet. After throwing some shells into Menzel, the French landed and occupied it. There was only a faint resistance from the insurgents amongst the palm-trees. Before evacuating the place the Arabs killed five Jews who had remained there. Later in the day the French troops left Menzel and encamped on the sea- shore, as they were not in sufficient force to resist an attack which was apparently meditated. No sooner had the French quitted it, than the Arabs returned, and set fire to most of the houses in the place. Menzel was therefore twice occupied by the insurgents and once by the French in a single day. The _Kisla_ or castle of Gabes, an isolated fort between Menzel and the sea, surrendered in the morning. The officer in charge and his prisoner, the well-known Alela Bizzai,[5] were received on board the men-of-war. No sooner had the French left the _Kisla_, than the Arabs rushed into it to seize the guns and powder. A few minutes after they entered it, a terrific explosion took place, and 300 persons at least were buried beneath the ruins or blown to pieces. The causes of this disaster are not precisely known, but it is supposed that one of the shells, which had been thrown into it prior to the exhibition of a white flag, suddenly burst, and ignited the gunpowder contained in a store beneath the fort. At the very same time (July 24th), 1000 French soldiers landed in the island of Jerba without exciting any hostile demonstration. The fort was surrendered at once, and the French flag hoisted upon it. Several Maltese families, who have for some weeks been living afloat, were now enabled to return to their homes.

“_July 29th._—News reached Sfax to-day that Sheikh Khemoun, with the Bimbashi and some other persons, who had taken a prominent part in the defence of the town, were proceeding to Tripoli overland. Caid Jelluli has now returned to the post from which he was ejected by the Bimbashi, but under a salute from the forts, and through a lane of French soldiers. He says he is resting, and cannot attend to public business. I am sorry to say that even now both wanton destruction of property and pillaging are still going on. As I am sure that this matter must sooner or later become the subject of much controversy, I shall write down some observations about it. In the first place, the care taken by the Arabs to protect property, after our departure, was a matter of public notoriety, as well as the draconic justice done by the Council of Forty. All houses occupied immediately after the landing by conscientious and respectable French officers were restored to their owners undisturbed, so much so that in one of them some money and jewellery were actually found on the table. A French doctor, who, as soon as he heard the fatal order to pillage, ran to his house and hung out a tricolour flag from the window, escaped without any loss, and the protection given him was also extended to a warehouse which happened to form the ground-floor of the building. Again, the telegraph office was not even touched, which would certainly not have been the case if the Arabs had commenced to destroy property in the European quarter, nor would many stores of grain and oil (favourite object of Arab raids) have remained intact. On the 17th July, when we first landed, we all saw the soldiers with our own eyes entering shops and stores, and either looting or destroying everything they came across. As in the case of the Arab town, the streets were littered with heavy merchandise and papers of all descriptions, including business books, obligations, &c., and on the following day, to make matters worse, these heaps were carried out of the gates and burnt. Two days later, the notice of the colonel against pillage was issued, but it only diminished the looting and made it more secret. On the 21st July, Mr. Montebello, accompanied by Mr. Leadbetter, went to visit a shop belonging to the former, and found that, the door having been forced, a number of soldiers were helping themselves to its contents. A sentinel looked in and said nothing. An officer was sent for, but he confined his action to telling the sentinel not to let any more soldiers enter the place. Mr. Cardona made similar complaints as to what had happened in his warehouse. When Mr. Leadbetter examined one of our own houses on the 17th July, he found the strong-box, his desk, and books untouched. Returning two days later, he was surprised to see the safe thrown down and forced, his desk rifled, and two soldiers playing with a valuable sewing-machine. He then endeavoured to prevent further damage by getting the doors sealed up, but on the 22d July he again found the seal broken and many other objects, including his clothes, gone. On the 30th July, _ten days after the landing_, I saw Mr. Consular-Agent Leonardi’s house being rummaged by soldiers, while at the same time their comrades had turned the square in front of the half- demolished Christian church into a loot bazaar. This traffic was witnessed by me from the first day of the occupation. Tunisian money was exchanged for napoleons at a loss of 40 per cent.; and I saw the Austrian Consul’s uniform sold for a mere trifle. The head of the custom-house informed me that the building was deliberately looted, notwithstanding his appeals to obtain its immunity as a public institution. When I asked him about this some days after, he was prudently reticent. There were many refugees on board the ‘Alma’ who saw the French writing letters on the valuable stamped paper, and when the marines exhibited their spoils, there was a pretty general chorus of ‘There are my books,’ ‘There are my clothes,’ and ‘There are my pictures,’ on the part of the victims. I have already described the measures taken by the Arabs to preserve order and respect for the rights of property, even to the extent of insuring the continued payment of the Government dues, and it seems to me that if they had once commenced to pillage, everything would have been carried away into the interior. Another wanton waste caused by the French garrison is the indiscriminate destruction of everything which can possibly be burned. The item fuel seems not even to enter into the calculations of the French commissariat, and anything handy is at once chopped up to supply the want. The damage thus done has been enormous, whereas supplies of firewood are obtainable in the gardens quite close to the town. A great deal has been made of the discovery of some boxes belonging to M. Mattei in the house of Sheikh Khemoun, but they were unopened, untouched, and evidently brought there for fear, lest the mob might not be over- scrupulous in the matter of French property. Besides scores of eye- witnesses, there is other testimony as to nothing having happened before the landing. A Moor, by name Hàj Hmed Maala, found that a Maltese gardener and his large family, who lived in an outlying garden belonging to Mr. Gili, were in imminent danger, so he dressed them in Arab clothes and concealed them in his own country-house till he was able, after the capture of the place, to deliver them up to Mr. Leonardi. This man (the Maltese gardener) says, that when the Arabs wished to pillage the European suburb, they were prevented from doing so by the action of the townspeople. The old bell-ringer of the Christian church lived all through the siege in a hole beneath the staircase of the tower, and was fed by the Arabs, who, he says, treated him kindly, and did no harm to anything. Their stories are fully confirmed by a number of Jews who lived on shore the whole time, and who were injured as regards neither their persons nor their property. In short, the Maltese colonists of Sfax have been the chief sufferers by the pillage of the town, committed in the manner I have described. Some of them have indeed lost their all; hardly one has escaped unscathed. As an eye-witness I have recorded what really happened in broad daylight and in the sight of hundreds of people. The only hope of the half-ruined British community is in the support which they feel sure their claims must inevitably receive from the English Government, and in the justice and equity of the International Commission which we hear is to inquire into the whole matter.”

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One of the most disinterested witnesses of the sacking of Sfax is the poet before-the-mast, John Root. I am not aware whether he was examined by the commissioners, but he writes with an evident knowledge of what took place:—

“And now comes stain on victor’s name,

The town is pillaged for their gain;

They rob the houses of the slain,

And strew the streets with plunder.

“The merchandise is thrown about,

Bazaars and shops turned inside out—

A scene of plunder and of rout,

All hands seemed bent on mischief.

“E’en fav’rite mosque, where day and night

The Moslems prayed for Prophet’s light,

To show them to do what was right,

Did not escape the pillage.

“If ’mid the plunder Arab’s face

Were seen, from French he had no grace,

No matter who or in what place,

He fell a corpse that moment.

“Thus while their goods in streets are thrown,

Their souls are to the Prophet gone,

For defending their own hearth and home

’Gainst Christian invader.”

As I said before, the stamp of truth in John Root’s writings amply atones for his rugged metre and peculiar rhyme.

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The International Commission at Sfax is now also a matter of history. It was composed of Captain Count Marquesac of the “Reine Blanche,” President; General Sy Muhamed Jelluli; Captain Tryon, C.B., of H.M.S. “Monarch;” and Captain Conti of the Italian frigate, “Maria Pia.” After sitting for several weeks it was abruptly dissolved in October, because apparently the English and Italian members were unable to avoid the inevitable conclusion as to the authors of all the mischief. At the beginning of the present year, the Arabs of Sfax were compelled to contribute to a heavy “war indemnity.” Most of them were already the debtors of the much impoverished Maltese merchants, and the levy in question effectually prevented their satisfying the creditors for an indefinite period. In the result the Maltese first lost their goods, and then the possibility of obtaining the payment of their just debts. It is almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true, that notwithstanding the numerous sittings of the Commission, and the fact that the sums since collected have been very considerable, up to the present time not a single farthing of compensation has been paid to the unfortunate persons, who, after watching the shelling of their houses and shops for a fortnight from a distance, only returned to find them pillaged by the very people who professed not only to protect them, but to be the pioneers of a sentimental mission of political civilisation.

Before going back to Northern Tunis I wish to bring the history of events on the southern coast down to the time of my own visit there at the end of November 1881. The French now occupied the town of Sfax, a spot on the sea-coast at Gabes, and the island of Jerba, but this was all. Outside these places the Arabs held undisputed sway, and no peaceful citizen could go beyond the French camps with impunity. The interval between August and November was passed chiefly in fruitless _reconnaissances_ on the part of the French, and daring raids and night attacks on the side of the Arabs. As early as the 31st July it became again necessary to engage the Arabs in force at the village of Menzel. General Logerot’s arrival did not mend matters. The villagers of Jára, who had done nothing at all, and had “received the French as brothers,” were fined 20,000 francs, and ordered to induce their co-religionists at Menzel to submit to the French, under pain of a fresh bombardment and the destruction of the great _Kouba_ of Sidi Bulbeba ou the neighbouring hill. As there was nothing left to bombard in Menzel, and as everything valuable had been taken away from the shrine of Sidi Bulbeba except his bones, the insurgents only laughed at the menaces. There were now over 3000 troops at Gabes, and the weather was oppressively hot, yet they were unable to establish communication with the freshwater springs three miles off, and were compelled to drink the ooze of the muddy river, which was impregnated with magnesia and soon engendered dysentery and fever. All stragglers from the French camps were pitilessly massacred, and the sentries were often shot on guard. “On the night of the 10th August,” writes Mr. Galea, “the Arabs surprised the French camp, cut down the sentries and began killing the soldiers as they lay asleep. Before anything could be done they had rapidly retreated. The French admit a loss of twenty killed, but I have been told privately that it really exceeded that number.” Sickness broke out both at Sfax and Jerba, decimating in a terrible manner the garrison in the last-named island. Raid after raid took place around Sfax, but beyond shooting two obscure individuals on the 27th August on an equivocal charge preferred by the Vice-Consul Giannino, of calling out _jihad, jihad_ (Holy War), very little was done. At times the insurgents approached so near to the town that they could be fired upon from the walls, and as soon as any tribe made terms with the French, it was immediately attacked by the insurgents. The “friendly Arabs” used to bring their dead and wounded as far as the ramparts, and cry in vain for help and assistance. If it was General Winter who defeated the first Napoleon in Russia, it was certainly General Summer who now came to the assistance of the Arabs in Southern Tunis, with dysentery and typhoid fever as his aides-de-camp. While MM. Ferry and Saint-Hilaire were prudently consulting _bourgeois_ susceptibilities by hastening on the elections to the French Chambers, while M. Roustan was obtaining concessions for his friends, and telegraphing reassuring platitudes to the Foreign Office, and while the Agence Havas was informing the French public that “our troops found the village abandoned, and returned to Susa, bringing with them a few hens, five cows, and five prisoners.” “It was a splendid operation,” it is added, “perfectly well conducted, and one which does the greatest honour to our young troops” (“Daily News,” October 3d, 1881),—the whole of Southern Tunis was abandoned to the most appalling anarchy and disorder, while the greater part of the northern part of the Regency was quickly preparing to follow suit.