Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  When they reached Igli on 5 April the soldiers found only a naked, tilting rockpile rising steeply from the brain-numbing emptiness of the desert. Some kind of shelter had to be contrived, and each unit constructed its own part of a desolate little shanty-village, built on the summit with piled stones and grainsacks and tent-sheet roofs. Here they would stay, eating dust and grilling in the sun, in the path of any harka that might ride eastwards from the Tafilalt towards the Touat – where the capture of the Gourara oases was now under way.9

  IT WAS DECIDED TO STIFFEN the Gourara column, formed of Algerian troops from El Goléa led by Colonel Menestrel, with two companies of légionnaires, despite the fact that the nearest available were at Géryville on the high plains, a good 300 miles north of the Gourara. On 27 April 1900 Major Letulle led out the 2nd and 3rd Companies of I/2nd RE, with 9 officers and 400 rankers, to set off due south across the virtually featureless map. They were accompanied by 1,500 camels carrying 70 days’ rations and 6 days’ water, and by 140 mounted irregulars on whom they depended to locate the wells, which were spaced more than 100 miles apart along the planned route. This march would involve crossing part of the Great Western Sand-Sea – the first time infantry had accomplished this, in an epic that for once exactly matched the cartoon image of a lonely column of légionnaires slogging across a dazzling immensity of bare dunes. Under a sun that was already approaching the furnace heat of summer they kept up an average rate of 15 miles a day, and on 17 May they linked up with Menestrel’s column at the small oasis of Tabelkoza. The twin kasbahs of Timimoun submitted without a fight on 26 May; and on 7 June, their wasted presence no longer required, the légionnaires began their return march to the north.

  This time they were taken not across the Erg but in a huge hook around its eastern edge, via El Goléa, Ghardaia, Laghouat and Aflou (see Map 3). The summer temperature was routinely 118°F (48°C) and for the worst part of the march it was recorded at 130°F (54°C) in the shade, though for 200 miles there was no shade. The men’s lightweight fatigue uniforms were reduced to rags, and boots ‘crocodiled’ by marching over miles of sharp rocks had to be roughly mended with bits of string or wire. Major Letulle would write that his légionnaires blasphemed constantly, but never faltered. On 26 July 1900 they reached Géryville again, having covered 1,134 miles in 72 days of marching over some of the hottest and most hostile terrain on the face of the planet; during that time only half-a-dozen of the 400 men had fallen out sick.10

  DOWN AT IGLI, MEANWHILE, the 2,000 men of Bertrand’s column were suffering badly, and a small cemetery was already filling up. There was virtually no pasturage nearby, and everything needed for human and animal life had to be brought down by periodic convoys. This complicated the equation, since the men and animals of the convoys were also mouths to be fed and watered, and while they were unloading at Igli the population of this parched oven rose to some 3,000 men and at least the same number of camels.

  The convoys down the Zousfana route were themselves a wasting asset, since the losses among the camels were shockingly high. To depart slightly from strict chronology, extracts from the report of a convoy that set out in October 1900 are instructive. It was the sixth resupply convoy from Aflou to Igli, commanded by a Lieutenant Chourreu; it departed on 8 October, and was joined on the 9th by a contingent from Géryville. Chourreu’s subsequent report reads, in part:18 Oct. Crossed pass of Founassa and arrived at Djenien bou Rezg. Many dead camels from previous convoys along the track through the pass, stinking badly. The Géryville camels at the head passed through without difficulty, but those from Aflou refused to pass close by dead camels. It was necessary to shift the corpses off the track and push our camels, in twos and threes – sometimes singly – to make them pass . . . On this stage the total of animals lost rose to 110; 220 [more] were requisitioned at Djenien to complete the convoy, which was accompanied [from there] by a battalion of [2nd Algerian] Skirmishers and two companies from 1st Bat d’Af, as escort and to relieve garrisons at Taghit and Igli. Apart from these troops the convoy then consisted of 16 Spahis and moghaznis [native gendarmes], 81 foreman-drivers, 1,375 drivers and 4,126 camels, of which 3,600 belonged to the Intendance [Commissariat]. The others were used by [the various Army units for their baggage] . . .

  24 Oct. Departed Djenien; arrived Igli 7 Nov. See attached table of stages, distances, report on water and pasturage, and daily losses of camels. The wells of the Igli track are little better than wells of circumstance [i.e. quite unpredictable], which had to be dug out before the convoy arrived. They gave hardly enough water for the men, horses, and the herd of bullocks that provided the convoy with fresh meat. There was no question of their providing enough to water 4,000 camels – it would have been a task of several days [at each waterhole]. Thus we had to depend on finding water in redirs and the rare watercourses. [Redirs are rock cisterns which trap seasonal rain or floodwater, shallow but sometimes up to several acres in area.]

  8 Nov. Spent the day at Igli, turning over rations and equipment and organizing for the return journey. 500 of the best camels were left with their drivers at Igli, in exchange for 350 left there by the previous convoy. Similarly, 100 selected camels were left when we passed Taghit.

  14 Nov. S/Lt Barthélémy, 1st RE, accompanied by [five Spahis and four native gendarmes] carried out topographical survey work on the left flank between El Moungar and El Morra. At about 1pm a raiding party of about 20 men on foot was spotted near the Djebel Béchar; they fled after an exchange of fire.

  18 Nov. About 10am a recce by the cavalry escort led by Lt Solard, 2nd Spahis, ran into another raiding party of about 15 men on foot, and again put them to flight without loss.

  The total of animals died or abandoned en route due to fatigue or illness, going and returning, was 1,110, of which 586 on the return journey. Those that died had usually been on previous convoys.

  Chourreu’s accompanying table shows an average daily march of about 13 miles, and an average daily rate of 29 camels lost. Unsurprisingly, the heaviest losses – between 48 and 62 – correlate with the days when water and pasturage are noted as scarce.11

  This massive wastage of camels was repeated roughly every six weeks for four years; in March – November 1900 alone there were seven convoys in the Sud-Oranais, each losing between 1,000 and 1,500 animals, so perhaps 9,000 were taken out of the local economy in nine months. The camels were requisitioned from the tribes with their drivers and gang-masters, but good hire fees were paid for men and animals; the driver’s daily rate of 1 franc was twenty times the pay of a légionnaire, and he got another 3fr daily for each camel. The compensation paid for camels that died was also generous, so drivers were notoriously careless of their beasts’ lives, but the sheer numbers lost distorted the economy of Oran province. While the total naturally includes some ‘repeat business’, it is estimated that in 1900 – 1903 there were some 40,000 camel-hires each year, and of these, up to 15,000 died annually, so about 60,000 in total. As Professor Gautier wrote, in the face of such plenty the jackals and vultures along the Oued Zousfana and Saoura were simply unable to cope.12

  THE REAL MILITARY BENEFIT of maintaining posts in the far south, given the escalating cost of keeping them supplied, must immediately seem questionable to us, and the fact that Oran Division was secretive in public about its operations suggests that it may have been questioned at the time. However, this was not a matter of cold military calculation; in these years the colonialist political and commercial lobby in both Paris and Algiers was riding high, and the chain of command and planning was certainly vulnerable to unofficial manipulation. In the winter of 1899/1900 the War Ministry and high command were still distracted by the furore surrounding the release of Captain Dreyfus a couple of months previously. The minister from May 1900 was General André, a Republican zealot dedicated to deep reform of the Army; his eyes were fixed on the immediate politico-military terrain, and his desk was consequently too crowded to accommodate dead camels. So long as Oran and Ain Sefra avoided any m
ishaps that would anger the French public, they would enjoy a fairly free hand, and in the current mood it would take some spectacular failure to anger most patriotic Frenchmen.

  Fashoda was barely a year in the past, and colonial bellicosity was fanned by a hot anti-British wind – indeed, one argument for a trans-Saharan railway was that it would allow French forces strategic access to British Nigeria in case of war. In spring 1900, Colonel Bertrand’s predecessor in command of the 1st Foreign, Comte de Villebois-Mareuil, was leading French volunteers fighting alongside the South African Boers (he was killed that April; the fact that his cousin was the playwright Edmond Rostand did nothing to harm the public legend of a real-life Cyrano). In this atmosphere the Quai d’Orsay’s twenty-year veto over provocative moves on the Moroccan border came under serious pressure, and while Foreign Minister Delcassé still argued the importance of the ‘Maghzan policy’ to shield France from criticism by the other powers, he was also a believer in the Saharan adventure.13

  SMALL-SCALE NUISANCE RAIDS repeatedly crossed the frontier zone during summer 1900, usually mounted by the Dawi Mani and their allies the Ouled Jarir. These gangs of a dozen or two riders hit mainly the herds and flocks of peaceful clans, but occasionally also vulnerable convoys of civilian and military traffic and the camps of the advancing frontier railway. On the lower Zousfana, on 26 June Major Brundsaux of V/1st RE marched a couple of companies up from Igli to Taghit with engineers to study the site for a permanent post.14 It was an inconvenient one, and there were several false starts before the fort was finally completed on a terrace of the western cliff close to the ksar. It was designed to house a garrison of one company each of Algerian turcos and Bat d’ Af joyeux; but while this would cork a bottleneck for major movements up and down the Zousfana, such static infantry posts were unable by themselves to deter the border raids.

  Ain Sefra Subdivision was forbidden to follow these plunderers into Morocco in hot pursuit, and since the heavy military convoys down the Zousfana and Saoura were soaking up many of the available mounted troops as escorts, the old imbalance between firepower and mobility still hampered the French response. Individual incidents were trivial enough, but collectively they increased the frustration of the Native Affairs officers planted among the tribes on the Algerian side. Reports travelled back up the chain of command all the way to GOC 19th Army Corps in Algiers, and officers did not relish the thought of the general reading a diary of their impotence to halt a string of irritating pinpricks:18 May. Razzia by Dawi Mani and Ouled Jarir took all the camels of the Ouled Sidi Tadj, 9 miles south of Moghrar Tahtani.

  30 June/1 July. Night firing on escort camp for rail workers at Zoubia [Duveyrier]; légionnaire wounded.

  1/2 July. Shots fired, and attempted theft of rifle, at Djenan ed Dar.

  20 July. Murder of a Spaniard and a native policeman at Founassa by party of Ouled Jarir and Beni Gil.

  22/23 July. 40 riders and foot attacked rail camp at Djenan ed Dar; sentry wounded, rifle stolen.

  27 July. Theft of donkeys and military equipment from Hadjerat M’Guil [the base of the 2nd RE’s 1st (Mounted) Company].

  28 July. Sentries attacked at Djenan ed Dar by half-a-dozen men.

  29 July. Two sentries attacked at Duveyrier, one wounded.15

  THE DECISION HAD NOW BEEN TAKEN to halve the size of the garrison broiling on the griddle of Igli, but it was not Major Brundsaux’s Legion battalion who were relieved. The Skirmishers of Major Bichemin’s IV/2nd RTA were to march back to Duveyrier with the camels from the fourth convoy; they would be screened by Captain de la Robedière’s half-squadron of 2nd Spahis, the usual small gaggle of goumiers and moghaznis, and Captain Sérant’s 1st (Mounted) Company/2nd RE.16

  Since Bou Amama’s rebellion nearly twenty years previously, the mounted infantry companies, of both the Legion and the 2nd Algerian Skirmishers, had become an established weapon in Ain Sefra’s armoury. Each of the two Foreign Regiments always had one and often two mounted companies, and since 1894 the War Ministry had finalized their organization. 17 By the late 1890s they had acquired the prestige of an elite, and could pick and choose among the légionnaires who applied to join them. They promised exhausting desert service, but – like the drafts for Tonkin – they also offered a man the chance of combat and the right to strut. It was a sign of the tactical distortions produced by the great southern convoys that what were supposed to be highly mobile strike units were now tethered to slow camel-trains as escort troops. This denied them the chance to take the initiative – the mission for which Colonel de Négrier had specifically created them.

  A company numbered just over 200 men, with rather more than half that number of mules (the extras to carry water and ammunition reserves and provide a few remounts). Although it had only the usual three officers – the captain commanding and two subalterns – the company usually operated in two independent 100-man halves (pelotons), each of two platoons (sections), one platoon in the second half-company being commanded by a warrant officer (adjudant). Each platoon of some 50 men comprised two squads (groupes), each led by a sergeant and a corporal, who could thus lead two half-squads if necessary. The officers rode their horses, and warrant officers and sergeant-majors had a mule to themselves; all other ranks doubled up in the usual way, with each pair taking turns in the saddle of their shared mule. The men rode broad, comfortable artillery saddles with their kit, bivouac equipment and rations for men and mule strapped in two big stacks over the pommel and crupper, almost enclosing the rider (who soon acquired the knack of dozing while he rode). The marching formation varied. The half who were on foot usually marched beside their riding partners, but might advance together ahead of the riders to scout crests; if danger was imminent the unit marched in square, with the men on foot surrounding the riders.

  ON 29 JULY 1900 THE NORTHBOUND COLUMN from Igli reached wells at a spot called Zafrani about 15 – 20 miles north of Taghit (see Map 12). The wells were low, and it would take at least a day to water all the camels. Consequently, that night Major Bichemin ordered Captain Sérant to press on ahead with the first 2,000 beasts before first light on the 30th, to reunite at Fendi at nightfall on 2 August. To the modern ear the word ‘convoy’ suggests a column – something linear; but a camel convoy was more like a cattle drive, spread over a wide front in separate strings of four animals loosely grouped in gaggles of 100 each under a foreman-driver. With twenty of these straggling mobs to shepherd along, Sérant’s mule company would need some horsemen to ride herd on them; Bichemin gave him a couple of dozen of Lieutenant Bel Habich’s Spahis, and these troopers were to be dispersed in couples of look-outs around the edges of the awkward mass.

  North from Zafrani the track led across several miles of flat ground to where the next water was to be found, near the foot of the western cliffs in a couple of redirs at a spot called El Moungar. At 3.30am on 30 July the company got under way in the chill darkness; irregulars scouted the trail ahead, followed at a distance by Spahis, and then by the légionnaires. The camel-drivers had made their usual disorganized start, and the company were trying to catch up with some of them who had gone ahead without waiting for the escort (no doubt hoping to be first at the El Moungar cisterns). At about 4am the captain became aware of a small group of Moroccans riding back past him in the darkness on his left flank. He took these to be returning goumiers, but the way they speeded up when they noticed the French made him uneasy. Shortly after this a goumier did find him, and reported that up ahead at El Moungar he had seen a large group of Dawi Mani riders and foot. Sérant sent two Spahi patrols forward; the very first dim light showed him some low, stony hummocks on the left of the track, and after quickly reconnoitring one of these he ordered most of his men up on to it. Their NCOs organized them into a square (actually, diamond) formation for all-round defence, with the mules in the centre. Meanwhile, Sérant ordered Lieutenant Pauly to take part of his 4th Platoon and the company’s own baggage-camels back to the main convoy and warn Major Bichemin.

  At
about 4.10am Sérant heard shots, and shortly afterwards Sergeant Léger’s Spahis returned at a gallop, spurring up the hillock and into the square of kneeling and lying legionnaires. In the dim but growing light before sunrise the captain saw shadowy masses of riders following them; there seemed to be about 400 – 500 Arabs in three separate groups, each with a flag, and they came on fast on three sides of the company’s position. When they were about 500 yards away Sérant gave the order to open fire by volleys; at that distance individual targets were invisible, but firing into the mass began to do some damage at once, and riderless horses bolted past. The Arab horsemen came on, shouting insults and firing from the saddle, and warriors on foot followed them to take up firing positions among folds in the ground.

  At some point Lieutenant Pauly returned from the south after reporting to Bichemin, and rode up another hillock to try to pick out a route by which his men could safely rejoin the square. At that moment the Dawi Mani charged Sérant’s position again, from about 200 yards. The légionnaires fired steadily, bringing down most of the foremost riders, but a few actually got up the hillock and inside the square before they were killed. Others flowed past towards the south, and on the valley floor they ran right into Pauly’s 4th Platoon, shooting down soldiers and mules alike – the square could not give effective support for fear of hitting their comrades. Four of Pauly’s men marching on foot, led by Corporal Erich, showed admirable calm; kneeling and firing as fast they could work the bolts of their Lebels, they stretched about fifteen riders in the dust around them before the Arabs left them alone in search of easier prey. Légionnaires reported seeing several riders leaning down from the saddle to snatch up wounded or unhorsed warriors behind them. The rest of that group rode on to the south towards the convoy, where Major Bichemin’s alerted Skirmisher battalion repulsed them and other parties with ease.