France's Invasion Of Algeria Research Paper

Despite being politically conquered by France, Algeria was still able to preserve their culture within their own homes. Although France attempted to prevent Algeria from continuing the practices of their culture by creating laws that were meant to set the people of Algeria to how they wanted them to be, they were unsuccessful in conquering a culture that did not see in them the purifiers that the French thought they were. For France, they took complete control of Algerian government, and annexed it into its own colony where it controlled the trade, and laws of the land. In what France had attempted to do at first, to convert their subjects into Christians, they were unable to do and in this way the Algerian’s were successfully able to resist …show more content…
Seeing the need to gain the trust and respect of his people, he decided to make a statement. He thought that by taking Algeria, his people would be satisfied with him and that economic growth would also come upon France from their control of Algeria. Charles first idea was to blockade the ports in Algeria, therefore controlling the trade and economy of the Algerian people. He hoped that through diplomacy, he would be able to annex Algeria under the Kingdom of France. This would become a major economic failure as it would end up costing five million francs every year to man the blockade. Besides this fact, by blockading the port, the trade between French merchants and the Algerians took a significant hit. Fearing even more failure and angrier citizens whose taxes were going to a blockade that was not working, he decided to invade and take Algeria by force. In what would be known as the French Conquest of Algeria, a french force of 37,000 soldiers would land in Algeria, just west of the capital Algiers. During the 3 week campaign the French soldiers would push toward the capital against local arab troops and the Janissaries from Ottoman Turkey. Finally, on July 5th they would take the city of Algiers. Although they had taken the capital of their intended target, they still needed to take a country who saw an evil christian nation trying to take away their …show more content…
Part of this resistance to the French was the predominant use of Arabic, even though the French had made French the official language of Algeria. In rural societies across the country, the people told of stories of a great savior forcing the French away and restoring Muslim dominance in the country. One of the reforms made for the restoration of Islam in Algeria was the Association of Algerian ‘Ulamaled by Muhammad Ben Badis. This movement was put in place the moral supremacy of Islam, and Arabic as the language. In this they attempted to reform the teaching of the French europeans, into one teaching of the Qur’an and with Arabic being the language taught in schools. This was a part of the Algerians attempting to gain equal rights for Muslims with Algeria. Part of the resistance to the French teachings came in the form of the people of Algeria being reluctant to send their children to French