Chapter XXVIII: Alarms at the Capital

In the early days of July, M. Roustan succeeded in bringing to a luxurious villa at the Marsa a powerful and zealous ally. At his suggestion, and through French influence, Monseigneur Charles Martial Allemand Lavigérie, Archbishop of Algiers, superseded Monsignore Fra Fedele Suter, Bishop of Rosalia _in partibus_, as Apostolic Administrator of Carthage and Tunis. Archbishop Lavigérie was essentially a _prélat de combat_, and his militant missionaries have been for several years gradually gaining influence in Algeria, Tunis, and even Tripoli. The French Government could not possibly have obtained more useful and uncompromising auxiliaries than these white-robed and red-capped _frères d’Afrique_, who, under the harmless garb of theology, pill-making, and tooth-drawing, are preparing the path for French conquests in the unexplored regions of the Sahara. The practical head of an eminently practical confraternity, Archbishop Lavigérie had been initiated, by a prolonged residence at the Vatican, into the useful art of combining doctrine and politics, and came to Tunis fully determined to acquire a lion’s share in the powers of the Protectorate. Such was the enthusiasm with which he was endowed, that three years before, he had succeeded in reducing even the crown of martyrdom to the matter-of- fact condition of a marketable commodity. In the quarterly issue of the _Bulletin de l’Œuvre de Saint-Augustin_ for January 1878, I find him publishing the following notice: “_Adoptions of Missionaries._—Our associates are aware that by paying the sum of 800 francs, they can support for a year a missionary in Africa. They become in this manner partners in his works and meritorious actions, _as well as in his crown of martyrdom_, as happened in the case of the charitable benefactors, who adopted the three missionaries who died for the faith _on their road to Timbuctoo_.” While the Pope is sending a Cardinal’s hat to the pioneer of French influence and martyrdom-by-proxy in North Africa, the Pacha of Tripoli is threatened with an incursion of French cavalry (not indeed to punish the Khamírs), but to chastise the Towaregs on account of the untimely fate of three other missionaries, who, notwithstanding the most explicit warnings, insisted on travelling from Ghadámes to Ghát. This peculiar feature of French policy was clearly foreshadowed and described in the correspondence of Sir Thomas Reade nearly forty years ago; and to such an extent has it been now carried that the Bey, the French Resident, and the Cardinal Archbishop may, at the present moment, be correctly described as the governing triumvirate of that portion of the Regency of Tunis which is not in the hands of the insurgents. Before the summer heat had fairly set in, M. Roustan had rewarded his friends, harassed his enemies, and reassured M. Saint- Hilaire; but the unexpected outbreak, in the early days of July, of a widespread revolution throughout the length and breadth of the Regency, entailed a very serious interruption in his plans, as well as in those of his political superiors.

First came the risings at Sfax, Gabes, and Jerba, of which I have already spoken at length. On the 4th July, information reached Tunis that the Arabs near Monastir had already defied the Bey’s authority, and had murdered three Europeans in a neighbouring village. The same evening the French Captain Mattei was assassinated close to the Bey’s palace and the Manouba camp. His murderer managed to escape, but an innocent Arab paid the penalty of the crime. The unfortunate boy, who was shot by mistake, is buried in the ditch near which he fell, and his mother is a raving lunatic in the Arab madhouse. The complications, however, did not seem to disturb at once the unlimited power wielded by M. Roustan. It was just now that he interfered to prevent the sale of landed property by an English subject to French bankers, because his consent was not previously obtained to the transaction. The matter was denied at the time, but the fact rests on the testimony of M. Valensi, the representative of the legendary French colony, and the zealous framer of chronic addresses in favour of M. Roustan, and who himself telegraphed to this effect to the would-be purchaser.

Every day the news of some fresh accession to the ranks of the rebels reached the Bardo. On the 18th July, while the Bey was listening to the details of the capture of his “faithful town of Sfax,” a band of 800 men belonging to the Zlass tribe, carried off 2000 of the royal camels from their pasture-lands, not two miles from the Manouba camp and the Kasr- es-Said gardens. A posse of Arab cavalry entered Kairwán and collected _vi et armis_ the public taxes, while another party invaded the Enfida and settled for themselves the vexed question of Hanafee and Melaki, by driving everybody out of it. Raids on the farms surrounding Tunis now became of daily occurrence, and at this juncture the Prime Minister Mustapha hurried back to Tunis as fast as a despatch-boat could carry him. But the position grew daily more and more serious; the Tunisian soldiers who had cheered in the very presence of the French at each halting shot fired by the Bimbashi of Sfax, came back to their quarters at the capital only to desert. The Bey was now urged to adopt the very remedy which had been ridiculed by M. Roustan four months before. He was told to call out the native army and form “a camp,” but his power and influence were both hopelessly ruined, and he was regarded as a traitor and a coward by every honest man amongst his subjects. Even while M. Roustan and General Logerot were elaborating their plans of a Tunisian expedition, hundreds of the rough Arab soldiers were taking their road southwards, calling out to every one they met, “We will fight for Ali Ben Hlifa and the Sultan.” The truth could no longer be ignored; revolution and anarchy now prevailed both in Southern and Central Tunis. French troops were every day returning to the Regency, but the heat still favoured the Arabs. On the 24th July half the Bey’s bodyguard was missing, and the farm of Mustapha between Mater and Bizerta in Northern Tunis was pillaged by Arab cavalry. Under these circumstances Sy Ali Bey, now civilised and friendly, found the task of organising a native force one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty. The soldiers, who had not as yet actually deserted, were far more likely to keep him as a hostage or convey him against his will to the tents of Ali Ben Hlifa, than to join him in attacking their comrades or co-religionists, for whose proceedings they entertained a lively sympathy.

On the 26th July a band of insurgents could be seen approaching Rades, which, as I have said before, is equally visible from Tunis and Goletta. A panic seized on the inhabitants of both places; business was suspended, shops closed, boats hired, and a general stampede prepared. The Bey ordered the bridge between Goletta and Rades to be broken down, and the passage to be guarded by artillery. A little later in the day the news came that a well-known Greek gentleman had been murdered in an outlying farm. The excitement then reached its culminating point, and an Arab attack was really apprehended. People in Tunis decided to fly to Goletta, and persons in Goletta determined to take refuge in Tunis. A crowd of Tunisian fugitives arrived by train at Goletta, but only to meet another mob of refugees waiting impatiently to take the return train to Tunis. The meeting of the two crowds formed a very amusing _tableau_, and the more so because a moment’s reflection must show that any attempt to invade two walled towns by the Arabs of the interior would be wholly out of the question.

Up to the present time the Tunisian difficulty, as far as Europe was concerned, had only affected two platonic overthrows of the Italian Cabinet: in France everything had gone smoothly, and the Treaty of Kasr- es-Said had been ratified almost by acclamation. The tide, however, had now turned, and MM. Ferry and Saint-Hilaire knew it; the expedition, shorn of its tinsel and trappings, was becoming day by day more unpopular, and the opinion was fast gaining ground that the French Protectorate over Tunis was a white elephant of a very costly and unmanageable character. The time was at hand when Tunis was to become an unmistakable factor in the politics of France, and to make matters worse, Bou Amema was threatening simultaneously a very serious disturbance in Algeria. The general elections were already fixed for the 14th September, but if things meanwhile grew worse in Tunis and Algeria a disaster might pretty confidently be anticipated. It was therefore decided to hasten the elections by a full month. “If in September,” wrote M. De Blowitz, now completely disenchanted, on the 27th July, “the country were confronted with a serious African campaign, the elections might be seriously compromised, and a formidable argument afforded to the Opposition. Consequently, notwithstanding all prior arrangements, it was decided that the elections should be held without delay, before any African troubles had time to break out.”

On the very same day, the town of Hammamet, fifty miles from Tunis, underwent an “African trouble” of a very disagreeable nature. It was attacked by Arab horsemen, who carried all the cattle belonging to its inhabitants away into the mountains, and pillaged a house belonging to the British Consular Agent, Mr. Cacchia, who was doomed to be one of the greatest losers by the insurrection. The fast of Ramadan now began, but the Bey reflected on the possibility of sharing the fate of his camels, and decided, for the first time in his reign, to spend the month in the comparative security of the pavilion on piles at Goletta. Up to this time only 400 irregular militia could be collected to form the nucleus of Sy Ali Bey’s contingent, and the regular army was reduced to about fourscore men. On the last day of July things reached such a pitch, that twelve soldiers had to be sent from Tunis to replace those who had deserted from the guard which protected the pavilion on piles. A few hours after their arrival they also deserted, together with one of their officers.