Snapshot · Empire: World History
In June 1845, French soldiers lit fires at the mouths of caves sheltering around 1,000 Algerians, killing between 500 and 1,500 men, women, and children by asphyxiation.
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At 33:25 · chapter starts 31:00
General Thomas Robert Bugeaud arrives as the man who changed everything. Anita Anand explains that Bugeaud — who had signed the Treaty of Tafna he would later violate — was appointed Governor General in 1840 with a clear strategic diagnosis: France had been fighting like a conventional European army in terrain and against an enemy where those rules did not apply. Drawing on lessons from the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, Bugeaud deployed the razzio, a scorched earth strategy of fast-moving raids that burned crops, destroyed granaries, slaughtered livestock, demolished wells, and made the land uninhabitable. William Dalrymple draws a direct parallel to contemporary conflicts, noting the similarity to Israeli operations in southern Lebanon.
General Bugeaud, appointed Governor General in 1840, abandoned conventional European tactics and launched a scorched earth campaign — burning crops, destroying granaries, slaughtering livestock, demolishing wells. Fast-moving columns turned one of the Mediterranean's most beautiful countrysides into wasteland.
In June 1845, French soldiers chased around 1,000 Algerian civilians — women, children, animals — into a cave system in the Daraa Mountains, then lit fires at the entrances for 24 hours. Between 500 and 1,500 people suffocated or burned. France expressed outrage, then promoted the colonel who ordered it.
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