page_title: French conquest of Algeria
section_title: Fan Affair
hierarchical_section_title: French conquest of Algeria / Background information / Fan Affair
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le coup d’eventail 1827 Deutsch: Darstellung des Fliegenwedel-Zwischenfalls von 1827: Hussein, Dey von Algier schlägt dem französischen Botschafter mit einem Fliegenwedel ins Gesicht. English: Hussein Dey insulting Pierre Deval, the French consul.
context_page_description: The French conquest of Algeria took place between 1830 and 1902. In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a naval blockade, following which France invaded and quickly seized Algiers in 1830, and seized other coastal communities. Amid internal political strife in France, decisions were repeatedly taken to retain control of the territory, and additional military forces were brought in over the following years to quell resistance in the interior of the country.
  Algerian resistance forces were divided between forces under Ahmed Bey ben Mohamed Chérif at Constantine, primarily in the east, and nationalist forces in Kabylie and the west. Treaties with the nationalists under `Abd al-Qādir enabled the French to first focus on the elimination of the remaining Ottoman threat, achieved with the 1837 capture of Constantine. Abd Al-Qādir continued to give stiff resistance in the west.
context_section_description: In 1795–96, the French Republic contracted to purchase wheat for the French army from two Jewish merchants in Algiers. The merchants, who had debts to Hussein Dey, the Ottoman ruler of Algiers, claimed inability to pay those debts until France paid its debts to them. The dey unsuccessfully negotiated with Pierre Deval, the French consul, to rectify this situation, and suspected Deval of collaborating with the merchants against him, especially since the French government made no provision to pay the merchants in 1820.  Deval's nephew Alexandre, the consul in Bône, further angered the dey by fortifying French storehouses in Bône and La Calle despite prior agreements.
  After a contentious meeting on 29 April 1827 in which Deval refused to provide satisfactory answers, the dey struck Deval with his fly-whisk (then called a fan). Charles X used this slight against his diplomatic representative to first demand an apology from the dey, and then to initiate a blockade against the port of Algiers. The blockade lasted for three years, and was primarily to the detriment of French merchants who were unable to do business with Algiers, while Barbary pirates were still able to evade the blockade. When France in 1829 sent an ambassador to the dey with a proposal for negotiations, he responded with cannon fire directed toward one of the blockading ships. The French then decided that more forceful action was required.
  Following the failure of the ambassador's visit, Charles appointed as President Jules, Prince de Polignac, a hardline conservative. This outraged the liberal French opposition, which then had a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Polignac opened negotiations with Muhammad Ali of Egypt to essentially divide up North Africa. Ali, although nominally a vassal of the Ottomans, eventually rejected this idea. As popular opinion continued to rise against Polignac and the King, they decided that a foreign policy victory such as the capture of Algiers would turn opinion in their favour again.
caption: The "Fan Affair", which escalated into the invasion.
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