People of the veil : $b being an account of the habits, organisation and history of the wandering Tuareg tribes which inhabit the mountains of Air or Asben in the central SaharaRennell of Rodd, Francis James Rennell Rodd, Baron
History
People of the veil : $b being an account of the habits, organisation and history of the wandering Tuareg tribes which inhabit the mountains of Air or Asben in the central Sahara
Rennell of Rodd, Francis James Rennell Rodd, Baron
Aïr (Niger); Tuaregs
Another post was built at Janet not far from Ghat, to watch the Azger
Tuareg. Its capture during the late war by the Arabs and Tuareg of
Ghat, and the killing of Father de Foucauld by a raiding party from
the Fezzan, are incidents in that same series of intrigues which were
instigated in North Africa by the Central Empires and carried on with
such success in the Western Desert of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Tripolitania,
Southern Algeria and as far afield as Air. If the Senussi leaders
have not been responsible for as many intrigues as it has been the
fashion to ascribe to this puritanical and perhaps fanatical sect,
the Germans at least discovered what others are still learning, that
the latent force of nationalism in North Africa among the ancient
Libyan and Arab-Libyan peoples is powerful still to-day. The spirit
of the Circumcelliones and of the opponents of Islam in the eighth
century was exploited by the Turks and Germans through the Senussiya,
which provided the only organisation available during the Great War,
though in fact only few Tuareg and Arabs at Ghat or in the Fezzan
were members of, or even friendly to, the sect. These people used the
opportunity afforded by the war to procure arms and material through
the Senussiya for the consummation of their own ambitions. The new
spirit which is abroad in Islam, in Africa as well as in Asia, is an
interesting subject of study for the practical politician. There is
no occasion to enlarge upon it here.
In consequence of these agitations, a raid came out of the east
and fell upon Father de Foucauld’s hermitage on the 1st December,
1916. The hermit was killed, but the raiders were not of the Ahaggaren
among whom he had lived, and to whom he had devoted his life; they
came from Ghat and the Fezzan. They probably started without intent
to murder, but because Charles de Foucauld was the greatest European
influence in the desert at that time, they desired to remove him
and perhaps to hold him as a hostage. In justice it must be admitted
that no one had any illusions regarding the political views of the
people of the Fezzan; they were in a state of open warfare with
the French posts in Southern Algeria. De Foucauld had played a
very great part against them in preventing the Ahaggaren rising
_en masse_ against the French; he was an important intelligence
centre for the neighbouring Fort Motilynski; he was apparently, well
provided with rifles in his hermitage. When surprised by the raid,
he disdained to fight, preferring to fall a martyr to his religion
and his country. My excuse, if any is needed, for touching on a
subject tending to be controversial is the appearance of a number
of mis-statements concerning the barbarity of his murder and the
treachery of the people to whom Father de Foucauld had devoted the
latter part of his life. It is well to remember, in the first place,
that the circumstances of his life and his prestige made the attack a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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