CHAPTEE IX. 



ALGERIA AND TUNIS. 

 Si vis pacem, para bellum. 



IN order to obtain the great advantages which the 

 possession of Algeria insures to France, we must 

 consider the difficulties or facilities which the cha- 

 racter and habits of the Mussulman Arabs offer, 

 regarded from the point of view of European civilisa- 

 tion. 



I am not speaking of the results which must be 

 attributed to Algeria in the military education of our 

 army, of what relates to life in the open, the aptitude 

 for enduring fatigue and privation, the value to our 

 soldiers of struggles which, as in the Middle Ages, 

 have an individual character. I am thinking more of 

 the novel moral dispositions derived in Algeria from 

 contact with the native populations. 



In the early days of the conquest, the duty and the 

 constant preoccupation of the French authorities were 

 loyally to carry out the Convention of Algiers, which 

 guaranteed to the Arabs that they should be allowed 

 the free exercise of their religion, that their habits 



