On September 5, 1853, one hundred and seventy years ago, with the support of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte who proclaimed the Empire after overthrowing the Second Republic, the authorities of Perigueux inaugurated the statue of Marshal Bugeaud in the presence of 30,000 people. As stated on the pedestal, he is honored as a “great war hero” who notably distinguished himself during the “pacification” and “colonization” of Algeria.
These apologetic and abstract terms hide terrible realities that constituted a total war, conceived and implemented by Bugeaud who had been the governor general of the colony since 1840. This war was characterized by the disappearance of two major distinctions inherent to conventional conflicts: the distinction between battlefields and sanctuaries to limit the extension of violence, and the distinction between combatants and civilians to protect the latter. Consequently, this war was particularly destructive and deadly.
In addition to the complete or partial destruction of oases, villages, and various settlements, there were massacres, torture, and mass deportations of indigenous populations who were also subjected to “enfumades”, during which entire tribes were sometimes exterminated. For example, the Ouled Riah tribe, whose unarmed members – men, women, and children – took refuge in the Dahra caves near Mostaganem. The operation carried out by Colonel Pélissier on June 18, 1845, obediently following Bugeaud’s orders, resulted in at least seven hundred deaths.
These practices were considered essential for the success of colonization, which could only prosper if the security of the French and European settlers and their property was permanently ensured. Bugeaud was not only the tormentor of the Algerian “natives” subjected to well-known and now thoroughly documented brutal methods. Upon becoming a Marshal of France in 1843, he also proved to be a formidable enemy of the Republic, which he hated.
Appointed by Louis-Philippe as the commander of the line troops and the national guard in the early hours of the February 1848 revolution, he boldly declared, “Even if I had fifty thousand women and children in front of me, I would use my machine guns. There will be remarkable things by tomorrow morning.” These illuminating words were spoken by someone who had claimed shortly before that he had “never been defeated” and that if he was allowed to “fire the cannons,” order would be restored and the “agitators” would be defeated.
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