French protectorate of Tunisia
Regency of Tunis Régence de Tunis ( Arabic)[citation needed ] | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1881–1956 | |||||||||
Anthem: | |||||||||
Status | Protectorate | ||||||||
Capital | Tunis | ||||||||
Common languages | |||||||||
Religion | |||||||||
Tunisian | |||||||||
Government | Constitutional monarchy under French protection | ||||||||
Bey | |||||||||
• 1859–1882 (first) | Muhammad III | ||||||||
• 1943–1956 (last) | Muhammad VIII | ||||||||
Mohamed Khaznadar | |||||||||
• 1954–1956 (last) | Tahar Ben Ammar | ||||||||
Resident-General | |||||||||
• 1885–1886 (first) | Paul Cambon | ||||||||
• 1955–1956 (last) | Roger Seydoux[a] | ||||||||
Historical era | Interwar period | ||||||||
12 May 1881 | |||||||||
20 March 1956 | |||||||||
Currency | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Today part of | Tunisia |
The French protectorate of Tunisia (
The protectorate was established by the
The first nationalist party,
Context
Background
In 1859, Tunisia was ruled by the
In 1861, Prime Minister Mustapha Khaznadar made an effort to modernise administration and increase revenues by doubling taxes. The primary effect, only fully felt by 1864, was widespread rural insurrection, coupled with great hardship for the general population. The government had to negotiate a new loan from foreign bankers. In 1867, an attempt to secure money failed; government revenues were insufficient to meet annual interest payments on the national debt. Tunisia plunged towards bankruptcy. Two years later France, Italy and Britain set up an international finance commission to sort out Tunisia's economic problems and safeguard Western interests. Their actions enjoyed only partial success, largely because of opposition from foreign traders to increases in customs levies. In 1873, Khaznadar again undertook reforms and attacked the widespread financial abuses within the bureaucracy. The results were initially promising, but bad harvests and palace intrigue led to his downfall.
The Bey reigned over Tunisia, whose southern borders were ill-defined against the Sahara.
At the time, Tunisia had just over a million inhabitants. Half of these were sedentary farmers who lived mainly in the northeast, and the other half were nomadic shepherds who roamed the interior. There were several towns, including
These circumstances made the Tunisian government unable, despite all levies and demands, to collect the tax revenues they deemed necessary to modernise Tunisia.
Congress of Berlin
The Congress of Berlin, held in 1878, convened to reorganise the states in the
At the Congress arrangements were also understood, e.g., by Germany and Britain, wherein France would be allowed to incorporate Tunisia. Italy was promised Tripolitania in what became Libya. Britain supported French influence in Tunisia in exchange for its own protectorate over Cyprus (recently "purchased" from the Ottomans), and French cooperation regarding a nationalist revolt in Egypt.
In the meantime, however, an Italian company apparently bought the
Slap of Tunis
Italy had a strong interest in Tunisia since at least the early 19th century, and had briefly entertained the idea of invading the country in the 1860s.[12] Italian was the lingua franca of Tunisian diplomacy well into the 19th century, and of the various expatriate communities in Tunis that did not speak Arabic.[13]
For this reason, the first foreign policy objective of Benedetto Cairoli's government was the colonisation of Tunisia, to which both France and Italy aspired. Cairoli, like Agostino Depretis before him, never considered to proceed to occupation, being generally hostile towards a militarist policy.[14] However, they relied on a possible British opposition to an enlargement of the French sphere of influence in North Africa (while, if anything, London was hostile about a single country controlling the whole Strait of Sicily).[15]
In the beginning of 1881 France decided to militarily intervene in Tunisia. The motivations of this action were provided by Jules Ferry, who sustained that the Italians wouldn't have opposed it because some weeks before France had consented to a renewal of the Italo-French trade treaty, Italy was still paying debts contracted with France and primarily it was Italy that was politically isolated despite its tentatives towards the German Empire and Austria-Hungary (Ferry confirmed that it was Otto von Bismarck to invite Paris to act in Tunisia precising that, in case of action, Germany wouldn't have raised objections.[16] While in Italy there was a debate about the reliability of the news about a possible French action in Tunisia, a twenty-thousand-men expeditionary corps was preparing in the Toulon arsenal. On 3 May a French contingent of two thousand men landed in Bizerte, followed on 11 May by the rest of the forces.[17] The episode gave an ulterior confirm of the Italian political isolation, and rekindled the polemics that had followed the Congress of Berlin three years before. The events, in effect, demonstrated the irrealisability of the foreign policy of Cairoli and of Depretis, the impossibility of an alliance with France and the necessity of a rapprochement with Berlin and with Vienna, even if obtorto collo.
However, such an inversion of the foreign policy of the last decade couldn't be led by the same men, and Benedetto Cairoli resigned from office on 29 May 1881, thus avoiding that the Camera would openly distrust him; since then he de facto disappeared from the political scene. The Italians called these events The Schiaffo di Tunisi (literally Slap of Tunis).
After the establishment of French protectorate, Italian immigrants in Tunisia would have protested and caused serious difficulties to France. However, little at a time, the problem was solved and the immigrants could later opt for French nationality and benefit from the same vantages as French colonists. Italo-French relation dangerously fractured. Among the hypotheses weighed by the Italian military staff a possible invasion of the Italian Peninsula by French troops was not excluded.[18]
Conquest
First Campaign
Taking the pretext of border incidents between the Algerian tribe of Ouled Nahd and the Tunisian tribe of Kroumirs on 30 and 31 March 1881, the French government led by Jules Ferry decided to send a force of 24,000 soldiers placed under the command of General Léonard-Léopold Forgemol de Bostquénard on the border between Tunisia and French Algeria.
On 24 April 1881, French troops entered Tunisia from the north (
Encouraged by the inertia of the Tunisian army, which had not moved to defend the town of Le Kef against the French attack, Jules Ferry decided to send a force of 6,000 soldiers under the command of General
Bardo Treaty
At 4 p.m., escorted by two squadrons of hussars, Bréart presented himself in front of the Bey's palace accompanied by his entire staff and most of the senior military officers. Tunisian soldiers honored them. They are introduced into the living room where
By this text, France deprived the Tunisian State of the right of active legation by entrusting diplomatic and consular agents of France in foreign countries with the protection of Tunisian interests and nationals of the Beylik. As for the Bey, he can no longer conclude any act of an international nature without having first informed the French State and without having its permission. By this treaty, France also undertook to ensure the durability of the monarchical regime and to preserve the Bey's status as sovereign and head of state; article 3 indicated that the Government of the French Republic undertakes to lend constant support to H.H the Bey of Tunis against any danger.
The last shots were fired on 26 May where 14 French soldiers and an unknown number of Tunisians died.[23]
Second Campaign
The return to France of half of the military force encouraged the country to take up arms. The signal for the revolt was given by
The whole country imitated the example of the Sfaxiens. In August, Kairouan was taken over by the rebels.
The Kef military camp was besieged by 5,000 fighters led by the chief of the Ouled Ayar tribe, Ali Ben Ammar. Near Hammamet, a French military force was harassed by 6,000 insurgents between 26 and 30 August and lost 30 soldiers. European civilians were not spared. On 30 September, the Oued Zarga station was attacked and nine employees were massacred. Following this massacre, Tunis was occupied on 7 October by French troops to reassure the foreign population.
Troops are sent as reinforcements from French Algeria. On 26 October, Kairouan was recaptured from the insurgents by the French forces. Ben Ammar's fighters were routed on 22 October; the last resisters were surrounded on 20 November. The last fighting stops at the end of December 1881.[24]
Occupation
In northwest Tunisia, the
The Bey was soon compelled to come to terms with the French occupation of the country, signing the first of a series of treaties. These documents provided that the Bey continue as head of state, but with the French given effective control over a great deal of Tunisian governance, in the form of a protectorate.[27]
With her own substantial interests in Tunisia, Italy protested but would not risk a confrontation with France. Hence Tunisia officially became a French protectorate on May 12, 1881, when the ruling Sadik Bey (1859–1882) signed the Treaty of Bardo (Al Qasr as Sa'id). Later in 1883 his younger brother and successor 'Ali Bey signed the al-Marsa Convention.
French protectorate (1881–1956)
France did not enlarge its Maghreb domain beyond Algeria for half a century. The next area for expansion, at the beginning of the 1880s, was Tunisia. With an area of 155,000 square kilometers, Tunisia was a small prize, but it occupied strategic importance, across the Algerian frontier and only 150 kilometers from Sicily; Tunisia offered good port facilities, especially at Bizerte. France and Italy, as well as Britain, counted significant expatriate communities in Tunisia and maintained consulates there. Ties were also commercial; France had advanced a major loan to Tunisia in the mid-19th century and had trading interests.
The opportunity to seize control of Tunisia occurred following the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). Paris did not act immediately; the French parliament remained in an anti-colonial mood and no groundswell of popular opinion mandated a takeover of Tunisia. Several developments spurred France to action. In 1880, the British owners of the railway linking Tunis with the coast put their company up for sale. An Italian concern successfully bid for the enterprise, leaving France worried about possible Italian intervention. Another incident, also in 1880, concerned the sale of a 100 000 hectare property by a former Tunisian prime minister. Negotiations involved complicated arrangements to forestall preemption of the sale by the Bey's government or by proprietors of adjacent tracts of land. A French consortium buying the property believed the deal had been completed, but a British citizen, ostensibly representing neighbouring landholders, preempted the sale and occupied the land (though without paying for it). A judge sent by London to investigate discovered that the British purchaser was acting on behalf of the Bey's government and Italian businessmen; moreover, he discovered that the Briton had used fraud to stake his claim. The sale was cancelled, and French buyers got the property. Paris moved to protect French claims, as London and Berlin gently warned that if France did not act, they might reconsider their go-ahead for French occupation.
French diplomats scrambled to convince unenthusiastic parliamentarians and bureaucrats, all the while looking for a new incident to precipitate intervention. In March 1881, a foray by Tunisian
As a protectorate, Tunisia's status differed from that of Algeria. The Bey remained in office as head of state, and Tunisia was deemed nominally independent, while existing treaties with other states stayed in force. France, however, took control of Tunisia's foreign affairs, finances, and maintained the right to station military troops within its territory.[29]
Organisation and administration
The
In Tunisia: Crossroads of the Islamic and European World, Kenneth J. Perkins writes: "Cambon carefully kept the appearance of Tunisian sovereignty while reshaping the administrative structure to give France complete control of the country and render the beylical government a hollow shell devoid of meaningful powers."[30]
French officials used several methods to control the Tunisian government. They urged the Bey to nominate members of the pre-colonial ruling elite to such key posts as prime-minister, because these people were personally loyal to the Bey and followed his lead in offering no resistance to the French.
To advise the Resident-General, a consultative conference representing French colonists was set up in 1891,[32] and expanded to include appointed Tunisian representatives in 1907.[33] From 1922 until 1954, Tunisian delegates to the Tunisian Consultative Conference were indirectly elected.[34]
Local government
The French authorities left the framework of local government intact, but devised mechanisms to control it. Qaids, roughly corresponding to provincial governors, were the most important figures in local administration.[31] At the outset of the protectorate, some sixty of them had the responsibility of maintaining order and collecting taxes in districts either defined by tribal membership, or by geographical limits. The central government appointed the qaids, usually choosing a person from a major family of the tribe or district to ensure respect and authority. Below the qaids were cheikhs, the leaders of tribes, villages, and town quarters. The central government also appointed them but on the recommendation of the qaids.[31] After the French invasion, most qaids and cheikhs were allowed to retain their post, and therefore few of them resisted the new authorities.[31]
To keep a close watch on developments outside the capital, Tunisia's new rulers organised the contrôleurs civils. These French officials replicated, at the local level, the work of the Resident-General, closely supervising the qaids and sheikhs.[31] After 1884, a network of contrôleurs civils overlay the qaids' administration throughout the country, except in the extreme south. There, because of the more hostile nature of the tribes and the tenuous hold of the central government, military officers, making up a Service des Renseignements (Intelligence Service), fulfilled this duty.[31] Successive Residents-General, fearing the soldiers' tendency toward direct rule — which belied the official French myth that Tunisians continued to govern Tunisia — worked to bring the Service des Renseignements under their control, finally doing so at the end of the century.[31]
Shoring up the debt-ridden Tunisian treasury was one of Cambon's main priorities. In 1884, France guaranteed the Tunisian debt, paving the way for the termination of the International Debt Commission's stranglehold on Tunisian finances. Responding to French pressure, the Bey's government then lowered taxes. French officials hoped that their careful monitoring of tax assessment and collection procedures would result in a more equitable system and stimulate a revival in production and commerce, generating more revenue for the state.[35]
Judicial system
In 1883, French law and courts were introduced; thereafter, French law applied to all French and foreign residents. The other European powers agreed to give up the consular courts they had maintained to protect their nationals from the Tunisian judiciary. The French courts also tried cases in which one litigant was Tunisian, the other European.[35] The protectorate authorities made no attempt to alter Muslim religious courts in which judges, or qadis, trained in Islamic law heard relevant cases.[35] A beylical court handling criminal cases operated under French supervision in the capital. In 1896, similar courts were instituted in the provinces, also under French supervision.
Education
The protectorate introduced new ideas in education. The French director of public education looked after all schools in Tunisia, including religious ones. According to Perkins, "Many colonial officials believed that modern education would lay the groundwork for harmonious Franco-Tunisia relations by providing a means of bridging the gap between Arabo-Islamic and European cultures."[35] In a more pragmatic vein, schools teaching modern subjects in a European language would produce a cadre of Tunisians with the skills necessary to staff the growing government bureaucracy. Soon after the protectorate's establishment, the Directorate of Public Education set up a unitary school system for French and Tunisian pupils designed to draw the two peoples closer together. French was the medium of instruction in these Franco-Arab schools, and their curriculum imitated that of schools in metropolitan France. French-speaking students who attended them studied Arabic as a second language. Ethnic mixing rarely occurred in schools in the cities, in which various religious denominations continued to run elementary schools. The Franco-Arab schools attained somewhat greater success in rural areas but never enrolled more than a fifth of Tunisia's eligible students. At the summit of the modern education system was the Sadiki College, founded by Hayreddin Pasha. Highly competitive examinations regulated admission to Sadiki, and its graduates were almost assured government positions.[36]
World War II
Many Tunisians took satisfaction in France's defeat by Germany in June 1940,
The Bey
Deposing the Bey
The accession of
The end of the World War II means the return in force of the French protectorate in Tunisia. The first victim was Moncef Bey who took advantage of the weakening of the French to publicize the Tunisian cause. Little suspected of having collaborated with the Axis powers, he can only be blamed for the decorations awarded on 12 April to German and Italian generals. He was however deposed by a decree of the general of Free France, Henri Giraud, on 13 May 1943 and exiled to Laghouat in the Franco-Algerian South.
He was replaced by
Independence
Decolonisation proved a protracted and controversial affair. In Tunisia, nationalists demanded the return of the deposed Bey and institutional reform.
A general strike in 1952 led to violent confrontation between the French and Tunisians, including guerrilla attacks by nationalists. Yet another change in French government, the appointment of
See also
- List of French residents-general in Tunisia
- Embassy of France in Tunis
- History of Tunisia
- French Colonial Empire
- List of French possessions and colonies
Notes and references
- Notes
- References
- Office of Intelligence Research. 1949. p. 1.
- ^ Herbert Treadwell Wade, ed. (1927). "Tunis". The New International Year Book. Dodd Mead and Company. p. 733.
The government, known as the Regency of Tunis, is under the French foreign office
- ^ Non-self-governing Territories. Vol. 2. United Nations General Assembly Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories. 1950. p. 120 fn 27.
- His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1931. p. 232., 1933. p. 16.
- Treaty Information Bulletin. Issue 39. Department of State. U.S. Government Printing Office
- Bibliography
- Aldrich, Robert (1996). Greater France. A history of French Expansion. Macmillan Press. ISBN 0-333-56740-4.
- d'Estournelles de Constant, Paul (2002). La conquête de la Tunisie. Récit contemporain couronné par l'Académie française (PDF). Paris: éditions Sfar.
- Ganiage, Jean (1985). "North Africa". In Olivier, Roland; Fage, J. D.; Sanderson, G. N. (eds.). The Cambridge History of Africa: From 1870 to 1905. Vol. VI. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22803-4.
- Holt, Lucius Hudson; Chilton, Alexander Wheeler (1918). A History of Europe. From 1862 to 1914. MacMillan.
- Ling, Dwight L. (August 1960). "The French Invasion of Tunisia, 1881". The Historian. 22 (4): 396–412. JSTOR 24436566.
- Perkins, Kenneth J. (2004). A History of Modern Tunisia. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81124-4.
- Perkins, Kenneth J. (1986). Tunisia. Crossroads of the Islamic and European World. Westview Press. ISBN 0-7099-4050-5.
- Triulzi, Alessandro (1971). "Italian-speaking Communities in Early Nineteenth Century Tunis". Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée. 9: 153–184. .
- ISBN 0-275-95138-3.
- Conte, Alessandro; Sabatini, Gaetano (2018). "Debt and Imperialism in Pre-Protectorate Tunisia, 1867-1870. A Political and Economic Analysis". Journal of European Economic History. 47: 9–32.
Further reading
- Andrew, Christopher. M.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1971). "The French 'Colonial Party'. Its Composition, Aims and Influences". S2CID 159549039.
- Andrew, Christopher. M.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1976). "French Business and the French Colonialist". Historical Journal(17): 837–866.
- Andrew, Christopher. M.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1974). "The groupe colonial in the French Chamber of Deputies, 1892–1932". Historical Journal(19): 981–1000.
- Andrew, Christopher. M.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1981). France Overseas. The Great War and the Climax of French Imperialism.
- Cohen, William B. (1971). Rulers of Empire. The French Colonial Service in Africa. Hoover Institution Press.
- Broadley, A. M. (1881). The Last Punic War: Tunis, Past and Present. Vol. I. William Blackwood and Sons.
- Broadley, A. M. (1882). The Last Punic War: Tunis, Past and Present. Vol. II. William Blackwood and Sons.
- Issawi, Charles (1982). An economic History of the Middle East and North Africa. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03443-1.
- Langer, W. (1925–1926). "The European Powers and the French Occupation of Tunis, 1878–1881". JSTOR 1904502.
- Ling, Dwight L. (1979). Morocco and Tunisia, a Comparative History. University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-0873-1.
- Murphy, Agnès (1948). The Ideology of French Imperialism, 1871–1881. Catholic University of America Press.
- Pakenham, Thomas (1991). The Scramble for Africa. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81130-4.
- Persell, Stewart Michael (1983). The French Colonial Lobby, 1889–1938. Stanford University Press.
- Priestly, Herbert Ingram (1938). France Overseas. A study of Modern Imperialism.
- Roberts, Stephen Henry (1929). History of French Colonial Policy, 1870–1925.
- Wilson, Henry S. (1994). African Decolonization. Hooder Headline. ISBN 0-340-55929-2.