The 1830s through to the 1950s saw bloody large commitments of the French Army is a pretty desolate place as indicated by this stamp. Realistic pictures like this stamp before the colonization might have warded the French off. Even all the Barbary pirate stuff wasn’t making the Ottomans rich, yet somehow France believed they knew better. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill tour pipe, take your first sip of your Turkish coffee, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
There is a National Geographic style frankness to French colonial issues that I find refreshing. Printed in Paris but showing the exotic wonders of the world as offered by the French Empire. Young French stamp collectors of the day must have been very excited by such issues.
Todays stamp is issue A6, a one Centime stamp issued by the French colony of Algeria in 1936. The stamp shows travel by camel across the Sahara desert and was part of a 31 stamp issue over many years in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.
Algeria began the 19th century as the Ottoman Regency of Algiers. A Jewish merchant in Algiers had supplied grain to the French Army for which he claimed not to have been paid. This then made him unable to pay taxes he owed to Hussein Dey, the last Ottoman provincial ruler. Hussein Dey called in the French Council in order to work things out with the French. The Council did not pay immediately as was expected of him and in frustration Hussein Dey struck the French Council with his fly swatter. Outrage swept France and the French Navy began a blockade of the port of Algiers.
Three years to the day of the fly swatter incident, in 1830 France invaded and conquered Algeria. The fertile plain that immediately faced the Mediterranean attracted a lot of French colonists as well as some Maltese and Italians. Collectively the settlers became known as black feet, their feet being in Africa and their hearts remaining French. Local Arabs were pushed inland away from the best land and now unable to engage in piracy. The interior of the country was often in Arab rebellion. Napoleon III tried to placate the area by offering local Arabs and Jews French citizenship. Jews took him up on it but the Arabs mostly did not. If they did, French law would replace Sharia law and this was blasphemy. France had to maintain a large army deployment in Algeria and some believe this contributed to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War.
During World War II, many Algerian Arabs were willing to fight with Free French forces. The black feet colonists were more sympathetic with Vichy France. In France itself, this branded the black feet as right wingers and there was little sympathy in France post war for sending troops to maintain the black feet’s coastal enclaves. Algeria became independent and Arab. French and Jew had to make a quick exit to an unwelcoming France. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/26/egypt-1965-arabs-unite-to-comemorate-the-burning-of-a-soon-to-be-arab-library-in-algiers/ .
Well my drink is empty and there seems to be no more Turkish coffee in Algeria either. Oh Well…. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.