In all these years of miserable guerilla warfare, in which such well-known commanders as Bugeaud, Pelissier, Canrobert, St. Arnaud, MacMahon, and many more, learned their first demoralizing lessons in warfare, the only people who excite our interest and admiration are the Arab tribes. That they were unwise in resisting the inevitable is indisputable; but it is no less certain that they resisted with splendid valour and indomitable perseverance. Again and again they defeated the superior forces of France in the open field, wrested strong cities from the enemy, and even threatened to extinguish the authority of the alien in Algiers for ever. For all which the invaders had only to thank themselves. Had General Clausel, the first military governor of Algiers, been a wise man, the people might have accepted, by degrees, the sovereignty of France. But the violence of his measures, and his ignorance of the very word "conciliation," raised up such strenuous opposition, engendered such terrible reprisals, and set the two parties so hopelessly against each other, that nothing less than a prolonged struggle could be expected.
The hero of this sanguinary conflict was 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir, a man who united in his person and character all the virtues of the old Arabs with many of the best results of civilization. Descended from a saintly family, himself learned and devout, a H[=a]j or Meccan pilgrim; frank, generous, hospitable; and withal a splendid horseman, redoubtable in battle, and fired with the patriotic enthusiasm which belongs to a born leader of men, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir became the recognized chief of the Arab insurgents. The Dey of Algiers had foreseen danger in the youth, who was forced to fly to Egypt in fear of his life. When he returned, a young man of twenty-four, he found his country in the hands of the French, and his people driven to desperation. His former fame and his father's name were talismans to draw the impetuous tribes towards him; and he soon had so large a following that the French deemed it prudent for the moment to recognize him (1834) as Em[=i]r of Maskara, his native place, of which he had already been chosen king by general acclamation. Here he prepared for the coming struggle; and when the French discovered a pretext for attacking him in 1835, they were utterly routed on the river Maska. The fortunes of war vacillated in the following year, till in May, 1837, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir triumphantly defeated a French army in the plain of the Metija. A fresh expedition of twenty thousand met with no better success, for Arabs and Berbers are hard to trap, and 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir, whose strategy evoked the admiration of the Duke of Wellington, was for a time able to baffle all the marshals of France. The whole country, save a few fortified posts, was now under his sway, and the French at last perceived that they had to deal with a pressing danger. They sent out eighty thousand men under Marshal Bugeaud, and the success of this officer's method of sweeping the country with movable columns was soon apparent. Town after town fell; tribe after tribe made terms; even 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir's capital, Takidemt, was destroyed; Maskara was subdued (1841); and the heroic chief, still repudiating defeat, retreated to Morocco. Twice he led fresh armies into his own land, in 1843 and 1844; the one succumbed to the Duc d'Aumale, the other to Bugeaud. Pelissier covered himself with peculiar glory by smoking five hundred men, women, and children to death in a cave. At last, seeing the hopelessness of further efforts and the misery they brought upon his people, 'Abd-el-K[=a]dir accepted terms (1847), and surrendered to the Duc d'Aumale on condition of being allowed to retire to Alexandria or Naples. It is needless to add that, in accordance with Algerian precedent, the terms of surrender were subsequently repudiated, though not by the Royal Duke, and the noble Arab was consigned for five years to a French prison. Louis Napoleon eventually allowed him to depart to Brusa, and he finally died at Damascus in 1883, not, however, before he had rendered signal service to his former enemies by protecting the Christians during the massacres of 1860.