Algeria is not conquered by the French

Commissar

Banned
Hussein Dey after the fan incident realizes, he is now at war with France and orders a military buildup by fortifying the city of Algiers with heavy guns, building several ships similar to the Korean Trurtle Ships that could wade into any blockade fleet and come out still afloat if not victorius, and asking for help.

Due to a combination of these actions, the French Invasion fails and the Barbary pirates resume their trade.

How does this effect Mediterranean strategy and politics of the mid 1800s.
 
Algeria is conquered by Britain. Or the French burn the place to the ground. Honestly, 19th century Europe isn't going to stand for the Barbary Pirates.

What is needed is not "turtle ships" but a stronger and more centralized government that can supress local piracy efforts and develop effective diplomatic ties and alliances with European nations.

Bruce
 

Commissar

Banned
Algeria is conquered by Britain. Or the French burn the place to the ground. Honestly, 19th century Europe isn't going to stand for the Barbary Pirates.

What is needed is not "turtle ships" but a stronger and more centralized government that can supress local piracy efforts and develop effective diplomatic ties and alliances with European nations.

Bruce

Considering the war started over Frances refusal to pay its debt to Algerian Wheat Growers, I think piracy was the least concern. And in most cases, the Europeans just paid off the pirates as a cost of doing business, especially when the "pirates" did legitmate business as well.
 
Bit sleepy, recovering from flu, so pardon if a bit incoherent - piracy was a declining issue, but you know, SEVERAL WARS had recently been fought to bring it to a halt, and you said "Barbary pirates resume their trade." It wasn't a major issue at the time -the invasion OTL was more in the way of the king trying for a 'small victorious war' to burnish his patriotic credentials - but that's because it had sharply declined DUE TO SAID WARS.

Anywhoo, the chances of Algerian shipwrights coming up with a "merrimack" or a "monitor" of their own - which is what you'd need to deal with 19th century ships of the line - seems rather remote.

Bruce
 
I'm thinking that Algiers' best bet isn't ships or guns but allies. Maybe Britain is just a tad more nervous about French control on both coasts of the Mediterranean at the time and decides to let aris knowe that this port is not for them. I'm sure anagreement could be reached - Whitehall purchases the Algerian debt, France gets to go on some other colonial venture and Hussein Dey is permitted to purchase modern arms, gets advisers and drill instructors, and starts making his control of the hinterland a steely, Weberian reality.

Friendly relations with 'civilised' native states were an accepted part of European politics at the time. North Africa was hardly a howling wilderness. But given the military inequality between the sides, it's almost impossible to imagine Algiers stopping the French on its own.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Other than France

I'm thinking that Algiers' best bet isn't ships or guns but allies. Maybe Britain is just a tad more nervous about French control on both coasts of the Mediterranean at the time and decides to let aris knowe that this port is not for them. I'm sure anagreement could be reached - Whitehall purchases the Algerian debt, France gets to go on some other colonial venture and Hussein Dey is permitted to purchase modern arms, gets advisers and drill instructors, and starts making his control of the hinterland a steely, Weberian reality.

Friendly relations with 'civilised' native states were an accepted part of European politics at the time. North Africa was hardly a howling wilderness. But given the military inequality between the sides, it's almost impossible to imagine Algiers stopping the French on its own.

Spain may well have stepped in. Another country to loot now that they had lost their New World colonies would have looked good to them.

If not, and given the ever increasing British trade through there, you can bet your bottom peso that the UK would have come in. Algeria wasn't going to be allowed to continue its piratical ways much longer, so it was really a matter of who and when they were conquered by a European country. If they had survived and continued on their merry way until Italy was unified the Italians would have done it, and with joy in the hearts for the revenge.
 
Spain may well have stepped in. Another country to loot now that they had lost their New World colonies would have looked good to them.

If not, and given the ever increasing British trade through there, you can bet your bottom peso that the UK would have come in. Algeria wasn't going to be allowed to continue its piratical ways much longer, so it was really a matter of who and when they were conquered by a European country. If they had survived and continued on their merry way until Italy was unified the Italians would have done it, and with joy in the hearts for the revenge.

Meh, the piracxy is a bigred herring. That was increasingly on its way out, anyway. Give Algiers the chance to turn into a modern state, and you'll see the corsairs disappear in no time. The real issue is that the French government wanted a victory in some glorious cause, and Algeria could give it to them.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Modern state

Meh, the piracxy is a bigred herring. That was increasingly on its way out, anyway. Give Algiers the chance to turn into a modern state, and you'll see the corsairs disappear in no time. The real issue is that the French government wanted a victory in some glorious cause, and Algeria could give it to them.

Why would Algeria turn into a modern state? Even the Ottoman heartland struggled to do that. The rest of the various Arab states signally failed to do that during the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, and arguably still haven't managed it.
 
Why would Algeria turn into a modern state? Even the Ottoman heartland struggled to do that. The rest of the various Arab states signally failed to do that during the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, and arguably still haven't managed it.

It's a very profitable thing to do, and they have a good example in Egypt. Like the Ottomans, and unlike the Omanis and yemenis, the rulers of Alfgiers, Tunis and other North African states had experience of diplomatic and financial relations with European states and while they were part of some distinctly premodern power relationships inland, they could certainly appreciate the uses of a modern government's tools. Bear in mind they were looking to acquire modern warships and arms. Certainly they were no less likely candidates for successful modernisation than the Khedive. I'd rather ask why a state in their position should be the only comparable one not to try.

Also, it would not pose a problem for Europe - quite the contrary. A friendly, relatively docile and militarily inferior, predictable and, to a degree, biddable Algiers could project European influence by proxy deep into the Sahara. The Dey's campaigns, his modern armies and shiny infrastructure projects, would be financed through bonds traded in London or Paris and the debt served from plantation agriculture and large-scale resource extraction. It's a great arrangement if you can make it work, and there's really no reason to think it wouldn't.
 
Hm. If the modernization thing goes well enough, might the Dey attempt to extend his influence to Tunisia or Morocco, or would the Europeans nix it?

One possible result is that Algeria includes rather less of the Sahara than OTL and French *Mali and *Niger more of it...or might the lack of an initial French presence in desert North Africa butterfly away French interest in colonizing the Sahel?

Bruce
 
Top