Battle of Macta
The Battle of Macta was fought on 28 June 1835 between French forces under General Camille Alphonse Trézel and a coalition of Algerian Berber tribal warriors under Emir Abd al-Qadir during the French conquest of Algeria. The French column, which had fought an inconclusive but somewhat bloody battle with Abdul-Qadir a few days earlier, was retreating toward Arzew to resupply when Abdul-Qadir attacked in the marshes on the banks of the Macta River in what is now western Algeria. The French panicked and fled to Arzew in a disorganized rout. The Algerians piled the heads of their defeated French enemies in a pyramid, allegedly hundreds in total.[2]
The disaster led to the recall to France of Trézel and the comte d'Erlon, the first military governor-general of the French possessions in Africa, and helped Abdul-Qadir gain influence over tribes throughout Algeria.
Notes
- Emerit 2010, pp. 18–19.
- Churchill, Charles Henry (1867). The life of Abdel Kader, ex-sultan of the Arabs of Algeria; written from his own dictation, and comp. from other authentic sources. By Colonel Churchill. London Chapman and Hall. p. 77.
References
- Emerit, Marcel (2010), "Abdelkader", Encyclopædia Britannica, I: A-Ak - Bayes (15th ed.), Chicago, IL: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., pp. 18-19, ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8
- Sanderson, Edgar (1898), Africa in the Nineteenth Century, Seeley and Company, p. 107
- Wagner, Moritz; Pulszky, Ferencz Aurelius (1854), The Tricolor on the Atlas: Or, Algeria and the French Conquest, T. Nelson and sons, p. 274
Further reading
- Gibson, Walcot (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 642–653.