The Conquest of the Sahara by Douglas Porch

Author:Douglas Porch
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429922098
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

XI

THE FOUREAU-LAMY MISSION

Anyone looking at a modern-day map of the Maghreb may wonder why Algeria occupies such an outsized slice of the Sahara while her neighbors to the east and west, Tunisia and Morocco, seem to cling precariously to the continent. Perhaps Algerian nationalists do not like to admit it, but their country’s possession today of a disproportionate share of the desert is due to the acquisitiveness of her colonial conquerors. We have documented the conflict between colonialists and anticolonialists over the Sahara, as well as the competition in Africa between British and French. However, what is not generally realized is that a fierce rivalry also existed between soldiers in the different French colonies. Algeria triumphed over her two neighbors because her soldiers were the more aggressive. In the 1890s, officers in both Tunisia and Algeria had plans to expand their administrations into the desert. Thanks largely to Captain Théodore Pein, the prize went to Algeria. The Foureau-Lamy expedition was a victory for the advocates of military conquest over those who favored peaceful penetration through trade and quiet diplomacy. But it was also a victory for Algeria over Tunisia, whose soldiers now had to be content with a very small slice of the Saharian cake. 131

On the face of it, Lamy’s expedition appeared invulnerable. Certainly, the Tuareg would not be able to overwhelm it by force. While Flatters had been a commander of more than ordinary mediocrity, Lamy was hardheaded and resilient. He was most unlikely to split his force and trot down some narrow ravine where he might easily be bushwacked. He would deal with the desert men from a position of strength.

In another sense, however, this expedition combined all of the elements of a potential disaster. While Foureau had great experience of desert travel, and Lamy had spent some time at El Goléa, few of his tirailleurs had handled a camel. Lamy did not trust the Chaamba to staff his expedition. In a sense he was right, for their indiscipline and even treachery were well documented. Lamy was to content himself with forty Chaamba sokhrar, or cameleers. But this was hardly enough to shepherd the 1,004 camels which he had collected at Ouargla from all over the desert. His Kabyles and French NCOs would simply have to transform themselves into cameleers. The sokhrar, distributed two per section, would become their teachers.

But the inexperience in dealing with camels, while very serious, was only part of the problem. As the Foureau-Lamy expedition made its way south from Biskra to Touggourt and Ouargla, it grew like a snowball by acquiring tirailleurs and Chaamba cameleers until, at the jumping-off point, it numbered 381 men. To cross a hostile desert with 381 inexperienced men and 1,004 camels was like trying to maneuver a battleship in a three-acre lake with a crew composed of Sea Scouts. The basic problem was the same—there was not enough water. To be sure, sizable caravans of Arabs had crossed the desert for centuries. Most had made it. But

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