FRENCH MILITARY RECONNAISSANCE
IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE (18th & 19th CENTURIES)
AS A SOURCE
FOR OUR KNOWLEDGE OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS
Introduction
The nations of Europe have derived strength and security from the general
improvement of human reason, and the cultivation of the arts of peace and war;
in the meantime, the spirit of military enterprise has declined among the Turks;
the vigorous age of their monarchy is past; and the weakness of their empire has
been exposed to their enemies, and parts of it have been invaded, or wrested
from them1
Since the fall of the Roman Empire, the military have seized upon the
possibilities offered by various kinds of antique structures for defence, or for
their materials for dismantling and rebuilding. We owe the survival of theatres
and amphitheatres all over France, or temples in Turkey and the Lebanon, to
their re-use as fortresses, and our knowledge of ancient sculpture and
architecture often depends upon the reuse of ancient blocks in new structures,
as at Pergamum or Koykos (Turkey). When the European military sought
intelligence on the ottoman Empire, it was therefore inevitable that they should
view any structures which might prove useful to them both for military ends, and
to amplify their usually assiduous interest in the antique past, the product of
a classical education. This paper examines the French military attachment to
antique remains and their reuse - spolia - as an important aspect of the
developing interest in Greek and Hellenistic art and architecture from the late
18th century onwards. Indeed, the acceptance by the French Ministry of War of
“archaeological asides” in large quantities in the reports they received is a
reflection not only of how the fabric of Antiquity was still in use in the
Ottoman Empire, but also of how the practical and the antiquarian are often
indissolubly mixed in the reports the officers sent back. For scholars today,
the reconnaissance reports filed in the Archives de la Guerre at Vincennes
(Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre) provide assessment from frequently
knowledgeable officers of many monuments which have either disappeared
completely over the past two centuries, or have been radically altered.
The very size of the Ottoman Empire dictated the spread of French interests in
war materiel and fortifications from the Greek Islands and the Balkans to the
Black Sea, and from Eastern Turkey down into Syria - and hence the range of
Greek and Roman antiquities of which the French were to offer accounts. Of all
European powers during the 17th and 18th centuries France had the strongest trade
interests in the Levant - from the Balkans and Greece, through Syria, Egypt and
Tripolitania to Algeria and Tunisia - and used her navy and her military
Rev. Robert Walpole, Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, edited
from manuscript journals, London 1817. Preliminary discourse on The Causes of
the Weakness and Decline of the Turkish Monarchy, p.1.
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readiness and reconnaissances in order to protect them2. An ally of the Ottoman
Empire since 1535, French trade with that immense concatenation of countries
comprised some 50% of all her maritime trade. By the French Revolution, only
Spain and America were more important markets for her, and half the trade
between Europe and the Ottoman Empire was in the hands of France3. Like other
European powers, France wished to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire
because it was not in her interests to see it divided. France's premier position
was maintained by a varied mixture of diplomacy4, agreements - the capitulations
- and the threat of force; and the Ottoman Empire was a useful weapon against
Russia and Austria. With Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 that threat became
a reality, subdued by the ignominious retreat and then enhanced by the designs
on the rest of Europe which unhinged the balance of power and presented Turkey
and the Balkans as a likely theatre of conflict between France and Russia. What
is more, Napoleon's actions, frequently contradictory and against traditional
French loyalties, achieved the otherwise difficult task of throwing Russia, long
the Ottoman Empire's enemy, into alliance with her5. The Levant, in other words,
was to become in the 19th century the target of the expanding empires of Britain
(Egypt) and France (Algeria and Tunisia), whilst the long-brewing conflict with
Russia came to a head in the Crimea.
During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Ottoman military and technological
skills declined, forcing her to employ temporary consultants from the West for
such tasks as cannon-founding, fortress-building, the production of gunpowder
and the training of troops in modern warfare and the use of modern small arms.
Thus 15 artillery experts are listed for payment in the budget for 15276; the
French Ambassador himself trained Ottoman artillery for the Russian War of 154850, and established naval operations against Spain in 1551-57; and French
embassies offered aid in the 17th century. The Embassy of Mehmed Efendi to
France in 1720-21 included military manoeuvres as well as the study of
fortification models8; and the series of military reverses the Ottoman Empire
suffered in the 18th century occasioned new efforts at military reform and
modernisation, such as the introduction as late as 1807 of training in European
fighting techniques mainly by France, but also by Britain, Sweden and Austria.
Foreign military aid continued, with Russian, Prussian and British military
missions in 1834 - too late, since her defeats triggered the Eastern Question,
namely the long agony for the dismemberment of the Empire which concluded with
the Treaty of Lausanne in 19239.
P. Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle, Paris
1896; ibidem, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIIe siècle,
Paris 1911;
3 P. Mansel, Constantinople: city of the world's desire, 1453-1925, London 1995,
p. 114;
4 cf. A. Vandal, Les voyages du Marquis de Nointel (1670-1680), Paris 1900,
pp.1-21: "Louis XIV et l'Orient";
5 V. J. Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1951,
passim.
6 R. Murphey, "The Ottoman attitude towards the adoption of Western technology",
in J-L Bacque-Grammont & P. Dumont editors, Contributions à l'histoire
economique et sociale de l'Empire ottoman, Louvain 1983, pp.287-298.
7 D. M. Vaughan, Europe and the Turk: a pattern of alliances 1350-1700,
Liverpool 1951, pp. 124, 127.
8 F. M. Gocek, East encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the 18th
century, New York 1987, pp.58, 86.
9 R. Mantran, "Les debuts de la Question d'Orient (1774-1839)", in R. Mantran
editor, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, Paris 1989, pp.421-458.
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The setting for this paper is therefore an Empire in gradual decline faced by
increasingly industrialised European powers seeking markets for their products,
willing to use their armies and navies as an arm of commerce, and their military
and naval personnel on missions which included reconnaissances. In what was a
Mediterranean (and, indeed, Europe-wide) game of chess, with ever-moving
alliances, the French Ministry of War attempted to keep up-to-date on Ottoman
military and naval capabilities by studying the strengths and weaknesses of the
Ottoman Empire, by mapping possible invasion routes, and by recording the
reports on defences and weapons composed by officers lent to the Turks. In 1783
and 1784, for example, engineers, artillery officers and sappers arrived in
Turkey, to train troops, found cannon, and build fortifications, within a School
of Military Engineering10. Many such officers were well-educated, and intensely
interested in the antiquities they came across, not only because of a classical
education, but also because such antiquities (roads, forts, cisterns, aqueducts)
might well be needed in the event of invasion, as proved to be the case when
France invaded Algeria in 183011. Since their reports often write at great
length on such matters, and there is no sign of disapproval at what might prima
facie be considered digressions, the Ministry was clearly of the same mind. We
shall examine below some examples of the reports generated during this mission.
For antique remains in western Europe, we can often trace changes to and usage
of ancient monuments century by century, through contemporary accounts12. Such
documentation is very sparse for the Ottoman Empire, and French reconnaissance
reports are therefore valuable today because they are often the only record of
many antiquities since destroyed by pressure of population, or of the more
pristine states of monuments since become dilapidated. Through them we can gain
a much fuller picture both of the “antique landscape” of the Ottoman Empire than
is available from most 18thC or 19thC travel writers or (later) archaeologists,
and of how the Ottomans continued in many instances to use a “military
landscape” bequeathed to them by Rome and Byzantium. To take as an introductory
example the most basic antique feature of all, namely roads: Western Europe was
giving great attention to transport questions in the 18th century, even to the
extent of investigating building roads on the Roman model by excavating and
studying the makeup of stretches of Roman road in France. That such Roman-style
construction was an unattainable ideal because too expensive, is reflected
partly in the recourse to canal-building. But in the Ottoman Empire roads were
especially important, nothing equivalent having replaced what the Romans had
built well over a millennium beforehand. To locate and use such surviving roads
was therefore essential for any army. Their lack was a cause for lament, as in
an 1807 Itinerary from Spalato to Constantinople13: And, what is more, the roads
are such that one might say both that there are none, and that they are
everywhere!
Apart from the general watching interest they had in an Empire which occupied a
substantial proportion of the Mediterranean coastline, three specific factors
throw into relief the attention the French gave to the often venerable
fortifications of the Ottoman Empire. The first was the need to assess the
military strength of the Empire, especially the likely access-routes through the
Dardanelles or the Balkans, or perhaps through Syria; and, given the power of
L. Pingaud, Choiseul-Gouffier, la France en Orient sous Louis XVI, Paris
1877, pp. 95ff; cited in Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au
XVIIIe siècle, p.275;
11 M. Greenhalgh, "The new centurions: French reliance on the Roman past during
the conquest of Algeria", War & Society 16.1, May 1998, pp.1-28.
12
M. Greenhalgh, The survival of Roman antiquities in the Middle Ages, London 1989.
13 Génie, Article 14: Turquie, Carton II, 1786-1838.
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Russia, to assess her defensibility from the North and East as well. The second
was the lack of a true fortress-building tradition on the part of the Turks:
rather than build afresh, thereby destroying the fortifications of previous
centuries on the same site, they had often been happy to mend and update Roman
and Byzantine constructions, or to employ Europeans to build fortresses for
them; likewise their frequent use of artillery of monstrous size and hitting
power was mitigated by a tendency not to maintain it well. This leads to the
third factor, namely the employment of French officers to train their troops, as
German officers were used in this century. In the 18th century, the French
sometimes served as adjuncts to the Turkish military, helping with artillery
training, and also with surveys of military installations (although advisors
were withdrawn when Austria declared was on the Ottoman Empire in 1788). These
surveys, of course, also found their way into the archives of the French
Ministry of War. This meant that an observant officer corps, often very
interested in the classics, could travel the country and report back to France
with written reconnaissances.
The Intellectual Background for Reconnaissances: Travel and the Mapping of
France
It is important to bear in mind the scholarly context for such reconnaissances,
which are predicated upon assumptions about military endeavour and horizons
which have since faded. The 18th & 19th centuries regarded scholarship and
treasure-hunting as appropriate activities for their military, blessed by the
ancients. Alexander took scholars with him, to write accounts of his campaigns
as well as to study the art and architecture which their master might wish to
imitate; Napoleon did likewise in Egypt, and started a modest Egyptomania back
in France. The Romans had collected trophies of their conquests; so did the
French. Royal vessels took antiquities from Syria and Libya to ornament the
palace and gardens at Versailles; and much of Britain's antiquarian loot was
conveyed by the Royal Navy. Europe was transfixed by the vision of ancient
Greece, and tended (often unfairly) to see Islam as the ignorant destroyer of
classical remains. The revival of aspects of the classical world, not least
through collecting antiquities, was therefore devoutly to be wished, even if
this meant trying to wipe out successor-states on the same territory. ChoiseuilGouffier, French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, was more an archaeologist than
a diplomat, and in 1765 actually exhorted Catherine the Great of Russia to
create an hellenic state on the ruins of Turkey, allied to Russia - to rescue
part of classical civilisation, in other words, from what he considered the
tyranny of the Turk14. This idea bore some fruit, since her second grandson of
1779 was baptised Constantine - not far from a deliberate vow to recapture
Constantinople for Christianity and Russia, the more so since talks were held
with Joseph II of Austria in 1780 with this end in view, the annexation of the
Crimea in 1783 and the loss to Russia of some Black Sea forts in 1792 being part
of the process. Choiseul-Gouffier's idea of an hellenic state also came to pass,
albeit on a smaller scale, when the Greek War of Independence (1821-30, with
some Russian intervention) led to the birth of the Greek state on the ruins of
part of the Ottoman Empire, and the destruction of the Ottoman Fleet by
Britain, France and Russia at Navarino in 1827.
For men such as Choiseul-Gouffier, the classical past was much more immediate
than the Middle Ages or Renaissance, and with more impressive monuments. With
P. Masson, Histoire du commerce français dans le Levant au XVIIIe siècle,
Paris 1911, p. 274;
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the development of civilian travel in the 18th century, usually for
architectural or archaeological investigation, or for educating youngsters in
their heritage, the military could join skills with civilians in making highquality reconnaissances. They considered themselves adequately prepared only
when armed with the appropriate ancient authors (whose works, they believed,
could offer important information about strategy, battles and monuments) as well
as the modern travellers who frequently offered commentaries on the ancient
authors as well as on what they actually saw on their travels. Napoleon took
this enthusiasm for the past slightly to extremes on the Expédition de l'Egypte.
Not only was a complete set of copies of dispatches, Orders of the Day, etc kept
so that the history of the campaign could the more easily be written, but books
were sent out to him in Cairo15, amongst them the complete works of Voltaire and
Winckelmann, various military memoires, Gosselin's Géographie des Grecs, and La
Gardette's Ruines de Paestum, presumably because this was the closest
information that could be found to Egyptian architecture. But these were mere
afterthoughts, for Bonaparte took a library of no fewer than 560 works (not
volumes), following a shopping expedition costing over 192,000 livres16. The
works included the Encyclopédie (1,980 livres), the complete Mémoires de
l'Académie des Sciences (1,650l), the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres (480l), Choiseuil Gouffier's enormously popular Voyage
Pittoresque de la Grèce, and the Voyages of Captain Cook. The seven parts of the
Choix des costumes des peuples de l'Antiquité might well have offered some
background on Egypt - but could the nine in-folio volumes of the prints of
Piranesi have been for anything other than a kind of pole-star - a comparison
between what the Romans had achieved and what he, Bonaparte, would accomplish?
That such big spending on books bore fruit is evident from the monumental
Description de l'Egypte which is in a manner of speaking France's true monument
to her invasion of Egypt. And the spirit it inculcated is reflected in the works
produced by Bonaparte's officers. Chef d'Escadran Schaouani is a good example,
producing a large quantity of notebooks17 of what he saw in Egypt and further
West, taken during reconnaissances, some with the help of the IngénieursGéographes of the Army. These included not only familiar Egyptian antiquities,
but also Roman forts the measurements of which he gave, probably because he
thought they might be used to house troops for defence. He complains in bad
French of his lack of instruments, interpreter, pencils, pens, or chinese ink,
and the slog of following the marching troops for nine to twelve hours every
day, struck at every step by fresh objects which command one's attention; so the
stops were scarcely times of repose… But then, as we learn from the biographical
notes he gives us18, he was probably well over 50, having started his drawing of
antique ruins in 1746.
Such high-quality preparation evidently became a tradition, surviving the fall
of Napoleon, for he was not the only officer to read the works of the Académie
des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Africa. Captain Delambe, writing from
Bone, where he was in charge from January 1833 to November 1839, reported19 on
B6-83: Expedition de l'Egypte: Copies ordonnes par le Premier Consul pour
servir à l'histoire des Campagnes d'Egypte et de Syrie, 1798-1801. Cf chapter I
for the books despatched.
16 6B-80, Toise des depenses faites la le Citoyen Caffarelli, General de brigade
du Genie d'après les ordres du Général en Chef Buonaparte, sur les fonds assurés
par le Ministre de la Guerre, pour l'expedition de la Mediterannee, An 6.
17 B6-79: Mémoires et documents divers sur l'Egypte provenant du Chef d'Escadron
Schouani, 1798.
18 B6-79, Egypte: Notes particuliers et observations de … Schouani.
19 3M541, Dépot de la Guerre: Algérie 1830-1836.
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29 March 1836 to the commanding General on a booklet published by the Academie,
entitled L'Histoire de l'Afrique Septentrionelle. He has read it with interest,
because all his leisure moments have been devoted to this same topic,
discovering the present-day names of Roman sites, the great majority of which he
believed would be a step to recovering their ancient names. Such work has had a
practical outcome, allowing him to correct many errors on the map of Colonel
Lapie - and he has evidently learned Arabic so as to be able to converse with
the locals. Thus we find the instructions20 given to two Ingénieurs-Géographes
who were to accompany M. Michaud to the Orient in 1830. They should learn the
language, read earlier travellers and ancient historians; and since Michaud's
research was the Crusades, they were ordered to undertake sorties designed to
correct the geographical details of central Asia Minor, of Syria and of Arabia
Petraea - regions which, from ancient empire to our own day, have been the
theatre for such important events. But why such solicitude for battles long ago?
Because it was realised that here (just as in Algeria), crusader fortresses and
their predecessors and successors still offered formidable obstacles to modern
armies. Indeed, scholarship could be served at the same time as military
reconnaissance, as is clearly implied by their further instructions: to get to
know, as a matter of the utmost importance, the military positions we should
occupy to defend the country. This would entail what we know of the marches and
military operations of the ancients with the dispositions required today, as
regards the lie of the land, as well as modern tactics and weaponry. In fact,
from the military point of view, this is a thoroughly modern reconnaissance,
using the Crusaders as a convenient skeleton, since their fortifications
perforce obeyed the same strategic laws dictated by the landscape. This same
symbiosis between what the Romans did, and what the French would do in their
footsteps, is a perpetual theme in their conquest of Algeria.
But if Napoleon provided the picture of the complete soldier-scholar, what
formal training was offered for officers to undertake reconnaissances? The only
general instructions that appear to have survived are from 182821, but these
might echo what was expected in the previous century. Reconnaissances should
include a careful note of the types and qualities of building materials to be
found on site, such as stone, wood, metals… Details of what to put on sketchmaps are also given: The houses, stone bridges and all masonry constructions are
to be drawn and coloured red - carte rouge, one might say, for including
antiquities which, in many locations, were the only masonry constructions
existing. Reports should conclude with a chapter of military considerations,
that is, a relation of military events ancient and modern for which the ground
reconnoitred, or its environs, was the theatre. If such events are lacking, one
will note down what is interesting about the history of the country.
What are the sources for such an interest in the antique past on the part of the
military? The impulse goes back to the Renaissance, when ancient military
manuals and tactics were first studied again, but only from texts. By the 18th
century, the desire for detailed knowledge led to systematic excavation and
travel expeditions to parts of the world (such as the Ottoman Empire) that had
not been much visited since the Crusades, except by traders ranged along the
coasts. Indeed, the 18th century saw a developing interest in national history,
including perforce that of the Middle Ages as well as of remote antiquity.
MR1619 Turquie 1619/33: Instruction pour les deux officiers du Corps royal
des Ingénieurs-géographes destinés à accompagner M. Michaud, membre de
l’Académie Française, dans son voyage en Orient, 1830.
21 MR1978/4, Comite Consultatif du Corps Royal: Extrait de l'Instruction pour
l'execution des reconnaissances Militaires don’t les Officiers du Corps Royal
d'Etat Major doivent etre chargés, 1828.
20
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French scholars, along with English ones, were to the forefront in such
developments; and two large mapping projects bracket our period - the Carte
Générale de la France (1756ff) and the Carte de France (1841). Both undertaken
for census reasons but with an eye to military requirements, they set the scene
for the intellectual horizons of those French officers who write reconnaissances
of the ottoman Empire. It may even be that the vogue for archaeological
knowledge amongst the military may have developed after the production of the
Carte Générale de la France, called the Carte de l'Académie, which was funded by
an Act of Association in 175622. For this project, printed questionnaires were
prepared, asking for names of hamlets, villages, chateaux, rivers, mills, watermills and roads. Respondents were also to be questioned about trees, Piliers de
Justice, crosses, calvaries, gibbets, boundary markers etc etc which by their
height and position servent to indicate in that region the separation of
territories, Intendancies, judicial areas, or Bishoprics - that is, although
many of the items instanced are potentially of antiquarian interest, their only
point in this operation is as boundary markers, for which purposes prominent
antiquities had been used since the Middle Ages. Given that by 1793, a review
showed that by that date some sections of the Carte de France had seen as few as
one impression pulled, most 11 or under, very few 20, and the highest 40, the
Committee of Public Safety determined23 to systematise such works into a General
Depot of all the plans, maps, memoires and works to do with geography,
topography and hydrography considered from all points of view of public utility.
Importantly, this grand plan would include groups of artists charged with mapand plan-making, and divided into five divisions of geography, namely (1)
astronomical, (2) historical and political, (3) physical and economic, (4)
routes by land and communications by sea and (5) military. It is important to
underline the universal thirst for knowledge that such proposals reveal, and
which for our purposes paid dividends in the scholarship and antiquarianism
shown in so many French military memoires and reconnaissances.
Such attitudes were fine-tuned by the time of the 1841 Carte de France which,
like it 18th-century predecessor, was written according to predetermined chapter
headings, including:
- Physical Description;
- Statistics;
- History, including political events and archaeology. Some entries are probably
valuable, because quoting from memoires which may not be printed or published,
or discussing monuments since destroyed or altered24. This project may also
offer some of the earliest accounts of "Gallic" antiquities25.
3M395, Dépôt Général de la Guerre: Carte Générale de France, Rules for
execution by the Engineers, 1757.
23 3M277, Dépôt Général de la Guerre: Comité du Salut Public, Section de la
Guerre, 20 prairial, An 2. For usage of the Carte, cf, loc. Cit. a MS of 25
November 1793.
24 e.g. Captain de Laslases on Chauvigny, in MR1298, pp26-7. Captain Blondat has
several pages on the antiquities in his Mémoire on Poitiers (Carte de France,
1841, carton MR1298, pp.13-16, 25-30). Captain Reverdet’s Mémoire Géodésique
Militaire (Carte de France, 1841, carton MR1298, p.7), notes the high quality
lithographic stone around Chatellerault, with qualities qui sont propres aux
nouvelles applications que l’on fait de l’art lithographique, et qui se prêtent
facilement à la gravure en relief au moyen des acides. - although in this case
not for art, but rather for the growing practice of making multiple copies of
documents, making lithography the predecessor to the photocopier.
22
MR1298/52-59, Carte de France, Feuille de Poitiers, 1842 etc etc. Includes
(as 1298/54) a Plan des Monuments Celtiques de Chateaularcher, dits le Champ de
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As well as the propensity on the part of classically educated officers to read
them for pleasure, reliance on the ancient authors, and on the markers provided
by ruins on the ground and relayed by military reconnaissances, was essential
for any itinerary- or map-making in the Ottoman Empire because the Dépôt de la
Guerre, which held such material in the 18th century, is characteristically
well-supplied with material for Western Europe, especially the borders of
France, but very light on material further East26. Attempts to remedy this
situation were made in 1797 by proposing a library for the Dépôt de la Guerre,
and drawing up very long lists of desiderata, strong on travels and voyages, as
well as on military arts, if somewhat lighter on history27.
Another element in the education of the French military which was a result of
the heady optimism of the Revolutionary period was the foundation of the Ecole
Polytechnique, and its organisation28 to include classes in architecture and
drawing for its students. The students would study architecture, or the
construction, distribution and decoration of private or national edifices. They
would draw from models and from nature, and would familiarise themselves with
the rules of taste in works of composition. Not only that, but a Conservateur du
Cabinet des Modeles was to the appointed - so the students might also study
architecture in the round as well as models of machines.
However, from hints in some of the documents it might be the case that not all
officers had patience with such a historically-based approach to the present.
Toscan de Terrail, on the General Staff in Algeria, prepared 111 pages of Notes
sur l’Afrique29 for his colleagues, and preceded them with an Avertissement
which reveals his frustration with such attitudes: Since one might find that
ther historical section of these notes goes back to too distant a period, deals
with events too well known or with those without a sufficiently direct
connection with the land called "Regency of Algiers", the table hereunder will
offer the reader a method of ignoring everything which might be judged useless…
But this account is purely historical, with nothing at all on the archaeology of
Thorus, Canton de Virome, Département de la Vienne - including views of them,
with three table dolmens (large stone leaning at angle against another), with
galeries, and a plan of a destroyed gallery. Also includes plans of various
important battlefields including Poitiers 732, at 1298/56. Indeed this Carte
(like them all?) includes a large section, Chapitre 5, dedicated to general
History, then Archaeology, then Military History (e.g. 263-74 for Battle of
Poitiers). The author of this account, Le Commandant Saint-Hippolyte, describes
(p. 206) how he had his officers each take account of the celtic monuments in
each section, and describe and mark them; but how the Champ de Thaurus was so
important that he drew it (see above) and described it himself, pp.218-40.
He also notes amphitheatres, walls, aqueducts and Roman roads. Nor is SaintHippolyte the only officer to report on antiquities: 1298/49-51, M. Fourcade,
Feuille de Saumur, Mémoire sur les environs des Trois Moutiers, Vienne, 1841,
includes (at 1298/51) pencil drawings of the Dolmen de Vaon, and a standing
stone “Polven (Caillou de Courcu)”.
Details in 3M249, Catalogue des Mémoires et Manuscrits topographiques et
militaires du Dépôt de la Guerre, An 8.
27 3M267, Dépôt de la Guerre: Bibliothèque; list dated 26 August 1797 (9
fructidor), with a much longer supplement dated Ventose An X.
28 3M311: Ecole Polytechnique, Organisation de l'Ecole Polytechnique, 7 Ventose
An 4.
29 MR881.1, Toscan de Terrail, capitaine d’état major, Notes sur l’Afrique, 111
pages, March 1836.
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the country. Toscan was an exception, as the enthusiasm for reconnaissances
made the Balkans, Bosphorus, Dardanelles, Constantinople and the Greek Islands
will now reveal.
Reconnaissances in the Balkans
It was the task of a Ministry of War to plan invasion strategies even against
allies such as the Ottoman Empire. The difficulty was that that Empire was
visibly collapsing (hence the viability of the Greek War of Independence), and
what would fill the resultant vacuum? Invading the Ottoman Empire through the
Balkans, specifically Croatia30, seemed attractive because the naval ingredient,
and the need for troopships, was much less than that required for attempting the
Dardanelles. General Guillaume assessed the possibilities in the early 19th
century, and set his account31 at the very beginning in its historical context,
giving the ancient history of Nikopolis, Apollonia and the rest - the entrepôt
of the two Empires of Orient and Occident. A powerful reason, he believed, for
taking this route was that in Epirus we could re-establish with very little
difficulty or expense the great roads that the Romans placed there. Guillaume
then parallelled Roman campaigns with contemporary ones, and this description
will include the ancient and the modern geography of this country. There
follows an account of Roman success in Epirus, and the note that the walls of
Actium still stand to ten feet in height, the circus surviving as well. He
completed the circle by drawing contemporary conclusions from Roman campaigns.
Guillaume had been on a mission to Epirus in 1807, when still a Colonel32. This
he accompanied with a map, with the ancient sites marked in red. He compared the
tactics and strategy of Ali Pasha to those that could be found in the Iliad, and
found that nothing is more like the manners of the Greeks in the heroic age, and
like those depicted by Homer, than the manners of the Albanians - not
necessarily a compliment, of course. The conclusion is inevitable: to understand
what is happening now, read up about strategy and tactics in the ancient
authors, for nothing has changed.
We may, however, note that Guillaume's was not the only view of the matter. When
Capitaine du Génie Riollay wrote a memoire in 1810 on north-west Bosnia33, the
planning was done completely without an ancient framework - so presumably taking
the "ancient route" was at least in part a matter of education and personal
predilection.
Or does Guillaume's reconnaissance smell too much of the study rather than the
landscape? It contains no indication that he has actually followed the route he
is recommending; and when, to Riollay's assessment we add that of another
Cf. MR1626/44, dated 15 March 1810: Mémoire sur la Reconnaissance faite dans
la partie Nord-Ouest de la Bosnie, indiquant les routes que pourroit suivre une
armee française qui pénétroit en Turquie en passant de la Croatie.
31 Génie, Article 14: Turquie, Carton 2, 1786-1838: General F. Guillaume,
Mémoire sur la possibilite d'une invasion en Turquie par l'Epire.
32 Génie, Article 14 Turquie, Carton 2, 1786-1838: Rapport de ma mission en
Erzegovine, Albanie et Epire, 1807.
33 Génie, Article 14: Turquie, Carton 2, 1786-1838, Mémoire sur la
reconnaissance faite dans la partie Nord-Ouest de la Bosnie, indiquant les
routes que pourroit suivre une armee Française qui pénétreroit en Turquie
partant de la Croatie, March 1810.
30
9
Engineer Captain, Roux La Mazelière34, writing in 1808, it becomes clear that
Guillaume was indeed unreasonably optimistic and romantic in ignoring the
difficulties. Roux writes from experience: not only are the fortifications along
the route old masonry castles without terrassement, for the most part very badly
maintained, and almost witout guns, but the roads (no hint given of Roman
surfaces) are passable only to pack-horses, there are few stone bridges (hence
impossible to manage with artillery), and the houses are all of wood, so
offering no defensive positions. Bad news though it was, this report was either
highly valued or widely circulated, for the archives carry four copies of it.
The clarity and elegance of these straightforward reconnaissance reports is
admirable, and they are often written by men of culture. For example, General
Danthouard's Mémoire sur la Dalmatie35, dated 10 June 1806, marks antiquities in
the margin: in his two-page account of Zara his catch-heading is a large 70point Musée, with an indication in a private house of a passable collection of
antiquities. Four colossal statues dug up at Nona are to be seen; and of Nona he
notes that it is an ancient town, but which has preserved absolutely nothing of
its splendour under the Romans… At Spalato, on the Dalmatian coast, he notes
that the Venetian extensions to the fortifications of Spalato (with more walls
and bastions outside the Diocletian enceinte) skimped the job, and the
fortifications having been for so long abandoned, have been used as a quarry by
the inhabitants; one section is even called The Breach - that is, they will
steal any material, and not just antiquities. Lassaret, a member of the corps of
Ingénieurs-Geographes, reported on Spalato in 180636, logged earthquake as
responsible for the destruction of antique towns, and remarked that one meets at
every step in Dalmatia the more or less obvious vestiges of Roman towns and
monuments, as well as a large number of coins from the Imperial period. The most
remarkable and the best preserved are those of the town of Salona and the palace
of Diocletian the very walls of which form the first ring of fortifications of
the town of Spalato - i.e. the walls of the palace still in use as such, if not
as any kind of military obstacle, as we saw above.
Reconnaissances and Spolia in the Bosphorus and Dardanelles
Two of Turkey's greatest weapons, and the shield for Constantinople, were the
two easily defensible straits to north and south - the Bosphorus leading to the
Black Sea; and the Dardanelles, the funnel between the Sea of Marmara and the
Aegean, which was Russia's only easy access to the Mediterranean, and the route
for all seaborne trade with Constantinople from further west. Both straits are
so narrow that gunfire from the fortresses which stood sentinel on the European
and Asian coasts could be devastating - hence the frequent descriptions of their
construction and armament37.
Génie, Article 14: Turquie, Carton 2, 1786-1838, Mémoire topographique et
statistique sur la Bosnie, 1 April 1808.
35 21-24/MR1626.
36 MR29-30/1626, Mémoire a joindre a la Reconoissance Militaire de la Dalmatie,
signed “Lassaret Ingénieur et Géographe", December 1806.
37 V. J. Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1951,
pp.437, with a commented bibliographical note, 421-430. Archives additional to
the Army Archives are available at the Ministere de la Marine (MM,B7, with over
452 cartons); AEMD Turquie (over 65 volumes), and AE Constantinople 74 with
consular material, 1795-1802.
34
10
But what was the quality of the forts and armaments which guarded these straits?
Many of them were antique in origin, or rebuilds using antique materials from
the plentiful antique cities which bordered them; and many of them mounted
cannon still firing marble cannon-balls. We may suspect that the mercantilist
interests of the West, including France, did not run to the installation of
weaponry of European standards (for marble cannon-balls were still being fired
across the Dardanelles in the mid-19th century); but if such antiquities were
sufficient to deter the French from running the straits under war conditions,
the British did indeed do so in 1807 (as a part-result of the Ottoman alliance
with France), and stood off Constantinople38 - the first foreign force to
approach Constantinople since the Cossack raid of 162439.
The Turks made very sure that friendly visitors knew about the power of their
armament, because they provided ceremonial salutes with them, as an English
captain recounts in 1790: The Turks at the Dardanelles always salute with
ball, and the nearer they go to the vessel, the greater the compliment. Each
fort fired seventeen guns; their cannon are monstruous, and the shot flying en
ricochet along the smooth surface of the water across our bows, from Europe and
Asia alternately, and throwing up the sand on the opposite shores, while shouts
of applause from the admiring multitude, hailed us on returning their salute,
crowned this charming morning40. That these cannon-balls were indeed cut from
antique columns (because of their ability to withstand firing, and their
devastating effect when they shattered on the target) is not in doubt. An
English traveller, Dr Hunt, in Turkey probably in 1799, confirms this: In the
great battery are guns of various calibre, and those on a level with the water
are enormous; the bore of them is nearly three feet. We saw a pyramidal pile of
granite shot for these huge cannon, which our Consul told us were cut out of
columns found at Eski Stambol (ancient Constantinople), a name given by the
Turks to Alexandria Troas…41 When he got to Alexandria Troas, he confirmed what
he had been told at Cannakale: Near the ancient port we saw piles of cannon
balls, formed out of granite columns, by order of a late Captain Pasha for the
supply of the forts of the Dardanelles. The voracious appetities for marble of
these cannon is confirmed by their quantity:, M.
Lafitte Clavé, in a long
account of 178442, includes a table of the artillery of the chateaux d'Europe
et d'Asie, reporting 19 ten-feet bronze pieces for the European side, which
fired a 22-inch-diameter stone ball, and one piece 20 feet long, with a 28 inch
diameter, The Asian side mounted 14 22-inch pierriers of ten feet in length.
As for the forts on the Bosphorus, Roumeli Hisar (p.71) has 13 pieces, each 17
feet long, 13 inches internal diameter, which are loaded with stone shot … we
have not been able to determine the weight of these balls since we do not know
the weight of the marble from which they are made compared with that of ordinary
shot. Since Lafitte Clavé was in Constantinople to give lessons on fortification
to the Turks, we can assume that he knew what he was talking about.
A good example of the scholarly bent of some soldiers who reported on the
Dardanelles is provided by M. le Chevalier de Clairac's Mémoire sur les
Dardanelles43 of 1726. Littered throughout with references to classical authors,
V. J. Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles, Berkeley & Los Angeles 1951, pp.
127-147: "That Infernal Strait".
39 Mansel, op. Cit., p.232. The Russians had tried and failed in 1770.
40 Captain D. Sutherland, A tour up the straits from Gibraltar to
Constantinople, London 1790, p.348:
41 Dr. Hunt, Journals, p.84ff., in Rev. Robert Walpole, Memoirs relating to
European and Asiatic Turkey, edited from manuscript journals, London 1817.
42 SHAT MR1616,
Nos 7-8, Reconnaissance de Constantinople, 1784.
43 MR26/1616, begun 2 October 1726.
38
11
cited in Latin in the margin, this account is far different from the typical
Renaissance production, crafted in the study from the ancient authors alone. A
detailed and apparently scrupulous account of some 129 pages, it also has plenty
of references to classical sites, which he actually visited, employing the usual
technique of antiquarians trying to make sense of what the classical authors say
by reference to the topography of what he can see on the ground. He marched, he
tells us, compass in hand, walking at a steady pace, minute-watch and compass in
hand; and whenever we found a well, a fountain, or any larger object, I wrote
its position in minutes and orientation. The chateau vieux d’Asie, according to
what he heard at the Dardanelles and read in Belon, was built by Mahomet II from
blocks taken from the ancient site of Scamandria, half a league from the straits
(Belon p.77). Of the new forts, the one on the European shore mounted
canons-pierriers - guns which threw a marble cannon-ball of between 400 and 800
pounds in weight. This is indeed an observation of concern to the survival of
Antiquity, since the balls were generally carved from antique columns, a
plentiful if diminishing source which was very convenient because little labour
was required to trim shaft-sections to shape, the balls not needing to fit the
barrel tightly44.
Constantinople and Environs
Constantinople, with sophisticated and beautiful multiple defences unbreached
for nearly a millennium, was of particular fascination to classicists and
military alike. In the 18th century, the walls of Constantinople and the
fortresses up the two straits were important military obstacles, and French
accounts offer much interesting archaeological detail not otherwise available.
Thus Major de Lafitte Clavé, writing about 22 April 1784 for the Département
Général de la Guerre et de la Géographie 45, offers a description which forms
part of a larger Mémoire sur la défense du Canal de la Mer Noire. The walls are
very degraded, he writes, with large breaches which have not been repaired.
Indeed, the three enceintes were in the worst possible condition; the walls are
falling down in shreds, as well as the counter-escarpment, and are covered with
creepers and bushes in several places. Neverthess, the author is clearly taking
the walls seriously as a military obstacle remarking, of the section between the
Seven Towers and the sea, that toute all this section of the fortifications was
once upon a time repaired with column shafts and entablature blocks, taken from
antique Greek and Roman buildings which the Turks did not respect; these can be
seen on the facing of the wall (parement), and on several can be read the
remains of Greek inscriptions. This is useful, because it tells us of the
splendour aimed at by the mediaeval reuse of classical spolia. This tranche of
wall does not survive; and we have no accounts of columns used elsewhere in the
walls for repair (i.e. horizontally, as ties). Since this section of wall was by
the sea, we can assume that the columns served here as they did elsewhere in the
Empire as a guard against undertow in the water itself, or at footings level on
dry land as a defence against sapping.
The depradations of canons-pierriers upon antiquities will form the subject
of a future paper. Meanwhile, see the summary in M. Greenhalgh, CISAM DETAILS,
forthcoming.
45 MR1626:
Turquie: pieces doubles 1784-1829; cf. pp.52-60. A draft of this
document bears the exact date.
44
12
Major de Lafitte Clavé also gave an account of a journey southwards from
Constantinople to Bursa, Nicaea and Nicomedia in 178646, which offers equally
valuable accounts of the region. At Bursa, where little remains today of what he
correctly recognised as the Roman walls (The antique sections of these walls are
constructed with great blocks of dressed stone; but they have been re-laid
subsequently with less solidity), he confirms that the defences were in a poor
state; but he also notes that the inner fort, which has completely diappeared,
had towers and a gate decorated to right and left by bas-reliefs which have been
mutilated. We can confirm his good judgment, and his range of interests, by his
admiring comments on the walls of Nicaea, which do survive, built with beautiful
dressed blocks taken from ancient monuments, which attest to the splendour of
this town, and on which several inscriptions may be read. At Nicomedia, where
almost nothing survives today, there were no standing antiquities in his day
either - but everywhere, in the roads and the houses, are to be found fragments
of column, capitals, and other debris which attest that antique splendour which
the Turks have appropriated for their own use.
The archives of the Engineers contain accounts which are not purely military in
intention, but resemble high-quality civilian travel diaries - another
indication of the range of military interests. An example is the late 18thcentury document entitled Instructions pour un Voyageur qui veut voir
Constantinople47, which offers descriptions of the walls (including Greek
inscriptions), and of 13th-century Tekfur Saray (The palace … is remarkable only
for the bizarre nature of some mosaics formed out of bricks laid symmetrically
in the masonry infill between the dressed blocks on the west, and by bronze
frieze ornaments arranged in the window arches, and which make them appea marked
with wavy lines. We know about the diapered walls, which survive: but none of
the bronze ornaments have survived. He records inscriptions in the walls from
the Constantine Palaeologus rebuild, and compares what is left at the Seven
Gates with the Renaissance description of Gillius: he finds only two main
columns flanking the gate, and the bas-reliefs earlier recorded have disappeared
except for one representing a Lioness, the dugs of which are filled with milk,
which is to be found above the Porte, set into masonry work that isd clearly
Turkish. From here he proceeds to S. John Studion, still with its roof on, and
can recall for us the whole structure of the nave, only sections of which
survive: the vault is held up by seven verde antico columns on each side, 6 feet
6 inches in circumference, each of the Corinthian Order, and surmounted by a
frieze of white marble admirably sculpted into foliage. On top of this frieze
are erected seven more smaller columns but well proportioned in relation to
those underneath them. It is impossible to tell their colour, because the Turks
have limewashed them. Next to the church, is a cistern supported on 23 granite
columns.
The Ministry of War also collected when available reconnaissances by foreign
officers. One such is a Russian journal of 182948, conveniently written in
French, the international language of culture. This anonymous officer relates
(correctly) that Mahomet II shot pierriers at the wall in 1453, and he saw the
breach at the Adrianople Gate - still in evidence after over 300 years - by
which he entered the city. He considers the walls very well preserved, except in
some sections covered with the most beautiful creeper, which gives it a
respectably romantic air; and he comments on the coats of arms and Greek
MSS du Génie, 4to/120, Journal d’un voyageur de Constantinople a Brousse
Nicée et Nicomedie en 1786.
47 MSS du Genie, 4to/120, paginated.
48 30/MR1619 Extrait du Journal d’un officier russe, 1829: Notes sur
un voyage
de Constantinople. pp.30-31.
46
13
inscriptions still readable on several towers. But they are outdated: these
defences must have been formidably strong before the invention of gunpowder
[artillery], or when artillery was in its infancy…
Greece and the Islands
The islands of Greece were of continuing importance to the French Navy, offering
convenient ports of call and occasionally bases for their ships, whose task it
was to protect and where necessary defend French commercial interests in the
whole of the Levant. The Navy was in a better position than the Army to assess
harbours and anchorages; and, in this capacity, they frequently came across
activities involved in the transport of antiquities from Turkey and Greece back
to Europe, although usually only the debris of the crime. The British competed
with the French for commercial advantage, and used the Royal Navy in the same
fashion. Thus Captain D. Sutherland visited Paros, and recalled its reputation
for marble: While its marble quarries were being worked, Paros was one of the
most flourishing of the Cyclades; but on the decline of the Eastern Empire, they
were entirely neglected, and are now converted into caves, in which the
shepherds shelter their flocks … Several fine blocks of marble – fragments of
columns, are lying close to the water’s edge, and seem to have been brought
there by travellers, who for want of a proper purchase to get them on board,
have not been able to carry them farther…49
Just what a general reconnaissance involved for the French in the late 18th
century is illustrated by that ordered by the Marechal de Castries, Ministre de
la Marine, in 1784. The Engineer Lafitte Clavé was on loan to the Turks, and
offer the Porte the important service of reconnoitering her frontiers50. The
survey seems to be a broad one, being entitled Mémoire Militaire sur les
positions relatives des Isles et des Côtes de l’Archipel du Levant, and is
inscribed To serve as an introduction to the General reconnaissance ordered by
the Maréchal de Castries 1784. How latitudinarian de Castres’ General
Reconnaissance was understood to be can be seen from Lt-General Durnan's 251page folio reconnaissance of Crete51, which includes no fewer than seven pages
on a a detailed description of a visit to the Labyrinth, complete with balls of
twine and torches. The promised plan of the site is unfortunately missing, but
they encounter and transcribe some of the graffiti of earlier travellers. This
whole account should be most useful to historians of 18th and 19th century Crete.
Frequently, such reconnaissances tell of antiquities completely lost or
substantially altered, usually because of the pressures of population and hence
need for building materials, of which antiquities were often conveniently placed
near the shores. The islands were easier to rob than the mainland, with most
antique remains on or near a working harbour or anchorage. The same block and
tackle used for shipping supplies could be used for antique statues or columns both considerably easier to ship than a mast, for example. Thus an Italian
report on Ithaca, of 180752 identified the fortress of Ulysses and, in the
locality called Polis are antique walls, where it is said there once existed an
A tour up the straits from Gibraltar to Constantinople, London 1790. Pp.14950.
50 MR3/1626, p.36.
51 MR 6/1616.
52 MR1628/48 Rapport sur l’Ile d’Ethiaki (Ithaque), (in Italian, in spite of its
title), 1807. Perhaps written by or for L’Amministratore d’Ithaca, Felichs
Zambelli, whom it mentions.
49
14
ancient city. Also in the locality called Santi Tanassi are to be discerned
traces of an antique temple. These discoveries were made only a few years ago by
two English travellers, who spent several days on the island - this account
perhaps written by or for L’Amministratore d’Ithaca, Felichs Zambelli.
Zante is another island on which antiquities are today scarce. L.Fauchier
reported53 in 1808 the few remains he found: The only antiquities surviving on
this island are those found at the village of Melinadro, six miles from Zante.
There is a well-preserved Greek inscription in the church of Saint Dimitry on a
stone slab in use as the altar table [and he transcribes and translates it].
Paolo Mercati had seen more a couple of decades previously, for he enumerates54
several, including the tomb of Cicero [!] which he draws; and which he says was
found in 1544 by Fra Angelo Gugliese Minor near to the catholic church of Santa
Maria delle Grazie, whilst digging within the Monastery - together with two
glass phials, one for tears, the other for ashes, which he also draws. Mercati
was more assiduous than the Frenchman who followed him for, trascribing the same
inscription Fauchier remarked upon, he goes on to describe how in the same
village are to be seen a variety of antique columns and several disks [cut from
columns] of cipollino. It is therefore not unlikely that these remains were part
of some antique temple. He mentions other column pieces in the church of San
Giovanni in the village of Bujato - another antique temple! Also near to the old
Castle above Zante is a brick pavement, from which he deduces a temple of Venus
or Apollo.
The Temple at Bassae, in the Peloponnesus, with its 38 Doric columns, was
described in a reconnaissance in May 182955. The anonymous author correctly
describes the pronaos, with ten ionic columns, or rather half-columns. From
another undated (but late 18th century?) reconnaissance56, we learn not only
about the remaining walls of Phigalea, but also about Bassae. At Pavlitsa (the
site of Phigalea), we find all around the village, and especially to the East
where still stand the remains of a gate and walls well preserved in fine white
blocks … and the enormous ring of fortifications of the ancient Phigalea. The
inhabitants of Pavlitza say there are no fewer than twenty-four towers.
(Apparently he didn’t go to look for himself). Nearby, to the West, antique
columns have been incorporated into a church, in which are column shafts of
about 50 centimetres in diameter, an upturned white marble column of about 80
centimetres, and two others with doric capitals. The same happens in another
church to the North-East, at Ennlisia Tis Panagias, where on the ground itself
can be seen the remains of an enclosure paved in marble tiles. In the walls of
the church, the thickness of which is that of the fortifications, are columns of
a smaller diameter which seem to have formed the peristyle - suggesting a temple
turned directly into a church. But close-by was a much more important monument,
named Bassae or, by the locals, I Styli - the Columns. In the author's correct
estimate, this is the most beautiful and the best preserved of the ancient
monuments of the Morea. He describes its situation, confirms that as in his
later colleague's day, 35 columns were still standing, and marvels that there
are 15 columns to right and left on which the architrave still rests with no
cracks and no missing sections … In spite of the debris cluttering the sacred
area the various parts of the temple are easily distinguishable.
MR1628/49, L. Fauchier, Rapport sur l’Isle de Zante, 2 January 1808, p. 27.
MR1628/57, Paolo Mercati, Descrizione dell’Isola del Zante, undated, but
perhaps late 18th century.
55 MR 88/1628, Itinéraire de la route de Navarin à Nauplie par Arcadia,
SiderCastro, Suano, Tripolitza, les Moulis, May 1829, pp. 16-17.
56 MR1628/88 fols 13-16.
53
54
15
The French interest in Greece and the Islands, whilst part of a commercial
context as we have seen, also partake of a growing passion for things Greek
(rather than Roman), which had begun in the late 18th century. This provoked an
unseemly but fruitful rush for Greek antiquities on the part of the German
states, the British and the French - in the last case leading to the acquisition
of two famous trophies, namely the Venus from the island of Melos (1820), and
eventually the Winged Victory from the island of Samothrace (1863).
Reconnaissances further East
French reconnaissances were also made away from the “European” invasion routes
in order to be prepared in the case of invasion of Turkey from Russia. Once
again, these are often rich in archaeological observations. Hence a Plan de la
Ville et de la Citadelle de Kars (Arménie), dated 2 December 1853, attached to
the MS Mémoire sur l’Etat actuel de l’Armée d’Anatolie by C. A. de Challaye,
consul de France (in Istanbul) - and dated 25th December 185357. This contains a
long description of the citadel and of the fortifications of Erzeroum, and still
expresses amazement at the construction: the enceinte is built from stones of
great size, and perfectly assembled with lime and sand, and the revetment built
out of dressed stone, jointed with much care and precision. Of Kars’ citadel,
the author remarks that the external rings of fortification having been built a
considerable time before the period of Vauban, these works cannot resist attacks
by modern Science or the military techniques which she teaches. He makes a
similar point about Erzerum: a strong site, with hills above it - though doesn’t
state, but rather implies, that the reach of modern artillery renders the
citadel easy to destroy.
In an early 19th-century reconnaissance beginning in Syria, from Aleppo to
Eviran58, the anonymous author visits Edessa (Urfa), describes the fortress as
in ruins (as it still is), and then the city walls, which have disappeared: The
fortress itself, as well as the walls of the city, are beginning to fall down in
various places. Greek, Latin, Armenian and oriental inscriptions are to be seen,
and mosaic paintings {des peintures en mosaique] - and says the fortress was
built by King Abagar. The same document notes of the city of Diyarbakir (p.14)
that This town, a theatre of war for several centuries, still retains several
vestiges of her ancient monuments. Greek and Latin inscriptions are to be seen
on her gates, and mosaic paintings and bas-reliefs are to be found within
churches and in other places.
On many occasions, we could wish for much longer descriptions. When Fabvier &
Lamy journeyed from Constantinople to Teheran at the beginning of the 19th
century, their account59 took in the walls of Nicaea, which survive (and
although ruined could still put up a good resistance to attack. They are adorned
by a large number of towers of beautiful construction). But all Ankara's walls
except for the Citadel have now gone, so more than the following would have been
useful, especially since the authors seem able to distinguish the various
building periods with accuracy: three sets of fortifications are to be seen,
flanked by square towers. The first is modern, and built from debris parts of
which once belonged to beautiful examples of Roman architecture. The second and
MR1620, Turquie 1811-1840; pp.47ff for Erzerum, pp.81ff for Kars.
MR1625, Description de la Route d’Alep à Eviran. No name, no date, but the
Dépôt Général de la Guerre stamp in red bears a crowned eagle.
58 MR1673: Perse, MM Fabvier & Lamy, Route de Constantinople a Thairam
[Teheran], undated but early 19thc: see pp.6 & 22.
57
58
16
the third are older, protecting the upper parts of the town, reducing there to a
single wall which crowns the top of the hill.
In March 1800 M. Tromelin made a reconnaissance60 right across Anatolia from
South to North, beginning in Cyprus and finishing in Constantinople. It is
interesting because of the large quantities of antiquities he records. He
visited Phaselis (naturally by boat - there were no roads), then called Porto
Gennesse because the Genoese once had a trading post there. At Cnidus are still
to be seen the remains of an ancient mole, only very recently destroyed, and at
Bodrum, he believed he had found a Temple of Venus & Mercury on the right of the
port. At Mylasa he recorded the Temple of Augustus (in Pocock's day a very fine
temple survived complete) and then visits the mausoleum-like tomb, and the
temple at Euromos. Proceeding across country toward Mount Latmos, he comes
across Alinda which, like everyone else, he misidentifies as Alabanda (which is
further to the East). I discerned a large quantity of ruins, of large buildings
clothed in dressed stones of some three or four feet in length, two in breadth
and six in depth. The Aga has established himself in a square court, closed
within by walls, a little above and some fifty paces from the ruins of a great
building. The building the Aga used on the ancient agora has now completely
disappeared, but the "large building" is the magnificent market hall, still
standing but with its floors missing. Tromelin calls this "the palace", and
describes the uses to which its remains were put: The palace and the porticoes
decorated with oval columns have been destroyed. The locals tell me that an
earthquake toppled these monuments a few years ago. But I found their columnstumps in the Aga's courtyard, chiselled out to make mangers for his horses … I
also visited several of the tombs described by Pococke, which still survive. One
of them had stone seats inside, and both cornice and basement storey: I went
inside, which is now divided into two compartments in use as stables. The palace
half-way up the hill is of grey granite just like the tombs, and is used to
shelter the village's camels. The consoles on which the columns of this palace
rested are still to be seen - square, and about one-and-a-half feet per side
[i.e. supports for the floors]. Reusing tombs is common everywhere; at Alinda it
was especially appropriate since the walls of the city are on the side of the
mountain, and some at least of the monumental tombs are on the site of the
present village61, on gently sloping ground between the ancient city and the
plain. (It should be underlined that two-storey tombs of the "mausoleum" type
found at Mylasa make excellent houses, with the people above, and the beasts on
the ground floor.)
Having crossed the Maeander, going north, Tromelin finds he is travelling on an
ancient road across a marsh (that is, the flood-plain of the river), made from
marble slabs, and repaired with antique column-shafts. This is too far north to
be the Sacred Way to Didyma (which he does not visit), and is presumably north
of Priene: we headed northwards and came upon a narrow road-surface of some four
feet in width, dressed with large stones which for the most part were of white
marble. I frequently remarked column shafts several of which were cannellated.
This road is about a league in length, and crosses an immense marsh, with a lot
of standing water. Hence in many places arches have been built under the road to
allow the water to flow beneath it. This whole project seems to me mediaeval,
and too much of an undertaking to have been made by the Turks. Nevertheless,
there is nothing in the construction of the arches to suggest they might be
antique; on the contrary, the stone blocks, parts of column-shafts, and bits of
marble capitals from which they are built prove that the ruins of ancient
39/1617 Untitled account of a voyage from Cyprus to Constantinople by M.
Tromelin, pp.33.
61 G. Bean, Turkey beyond the Maeander, London 1971, fig 52 for an illustration.
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17
buildings were used in their construction. This road is sinking by the day and,
given the very little care lavished upon it, will soon be totally unviable. Not
only have antiquities been used to repair the road: they are also in heavy use
in Turkish cemeteries. About a mile from Guzzel-Kissana the marsh ends, and
gardens begin, as well as a Turkish cemetery at the entrance to the village, and
all the stones that the Muslims are in the habit of putting at head and foot of
their graves are all column-shafts of white marble; many are cannellated, and
are probably about two feet in diameter and some fourteen or fifteen feet high,
others considerably less. I saw several Corinthian capitals, and beautifully
worked frieze and architrave blocks.
This was not the only reconnaissance Tromelin made, for in autumn 1807 he went
through Northern Greece, and to Thessaloniki62. Crossing the Vale of Tempe,
north of Larissa, he came across the remains of an antique road in one of the
clumps of plane trees characteristic of the region, which followed the side of a
gorge, and with its full width excavated from the rock, and paved with the
marble extracted from the cutting. This ancient road might be some twenty or
twenty-five feet in breadth. It is paved with large slabs of marble, and
everywhere in a good state of conservation - and it develops into an ancient
road still viable for modern artillery.
Reconnaissance at War: Algeria 1830-1845
Roman roads are very common in Algeria; their cities, fortresses and fortified
waystations, and above all roads are found at every step. Every col, every
strategic position is provided with a station consisting of a square fort
constructed from strong dressed stone blocks … From our observations it is clear
that the Romans built three parallel strategic routes, leading inland from the
sea…63
In Algeria, which the French had invaded, easily overthrowing Turkish rule
represented by the Bey, and were trying to pacify and colonise, Roman remains
were especially important, because they offered a lifeline to an army short of
money, supplies, men and backup. Reusing Roman forts saved shipping building
materials from France; Roman silos provided storage for grain, and Roman
aquedeucts and cisterns offered water. Roads were particularly important,
because of the need to move artillery around - so Roman roads were frequently
repaired, as a much cheaper and quicker alternative to new construction.
Reconnaissances in Algeria generally follow a set pattern of ruled columns
containing a listing of salient features, and sketches where necessary. One
example can stand for all: a anonymous itinerary of 184264. It gives stages on
the left-hand page, with sketches of rivers, defences, villages where need be;
and notes on specifics and on the road, on the right-hand opening. Some of the
sketches are detailed enough to be useful, such as the ruins at Doueira, the
blockhaus at Belidah, and Belidah itself, this last described as guere en effet
qu’un poche d’anciennes constructions. We are also given a sketch of the
aqueduct of Medeah, with its two tiers of arches, and the Ruins of a Roman camp,
the lines of its fortifications being drawn on the ground by lines of great
Génie, Article 14, Turquie: Carton2, 1786-1838, J. J. Tromelin, Officier
d'Etat Major, Voyage en Turquie, written up 10 February 1808.
63 11-13/1315, Lieutenant Montaudon, Memoire sur l’Algerie, 1844, p.30.
64 63-4/1314 Itinéraire de la route d’Alger à Boghar, dated 1842; cf. Fols 24v,
38v, 70v and 88v-89 for references.
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dressed blocks near to Bervnaguiah – an irregular rectangle 160 metres broad by
250 metres long.
M. Dureau de la Malle, writing about the antiquities of Algeria in the Journal
des Débats in 1836, suggested65 that his gathering together of ancient and
modern accounts could be helpful in the coming push to occupy Constantine.
Statesmen and soldiers would profit from reading the topographical discussions
which he gave in abridged form. He also stated his belief that a member of the
Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres should accompany the army, to draw
the important ruins, city fortifications, and inscriptions.
To the extent that antiquarian expertise was needed to establish a viable map of
Algeria, and that scholars needed the support of the army in their endeavours
for safety and transport, there was a symbiotic relationship between the
military and the archaeologists in Algeria - the more so since so many soldiers
had antiquarian interests. Proof of the crucial need for reconnaissances and
archaeology to join together in order to supplement inaedquate modern maps of
Algeria comes from a member of the Scientific Commission on Algeria. E.
Pellissier, writing in 184366, noted that Already in the current situation
archaeology, everywhere we have been able to reach, is coming to the aid of
geography. Indeed, the Arabs leave things to go to ruin much more than they
actively destroy, so that the ruins of ancient monuments remain standing, and
every dig near them bears fruit. But, in this desolate landscape, ruins
frequently cover earlier ruins. In the level above ancient geography lies, so to
speak, Saracen geography, whioch has its own obscurities. How many cities still
standing in the times of Leo Africanus or of Marmol, have now completely
disappeared, so that their location is almost as difficult to find as that of
Scylax' Carthaginian cities? The author’s technique was to compare what he saw
on the ground, and then use the ancient authors - Strabo, Ptolemy, and the
mediaeval copy of an ancient map called the Tabula Peutingeriana. His concern
was to identify cities from antiquity, as a way of setting up his notional route
maps. Remarking briefly on the great number of ruins on the road from
Constantine to Setif, he noted that first making a large-secale map, and then a
simple comparison between this map and the Tabula Peutingeriana will suffice to
give them [the ruins] the appropriate names. Before we laugh at the use of a
mediaeval copy of an ancient map as a method of checking modern mapmaking, and
suspect (wrongly) that the French did not value accuracy in mapmaking, it is as
well to assess the problems the French faced in Russia and in Egypt, for both of
which countries modern maps were nearly non-existant. In 1812, the French began
not only the invasion of Russia, but the preparation of a map of Russia, in at
least 121 sheets. For Egypt, they prepared a map of 47 sheets, including
letterpress for 8011 italic words and 13,694 capital and roman words!67
Confirmation that reconnaissances including notices of antiquities were
considered useful as opposed to simply academic comes from the French engagement
in Algeria, when knowledge of surviving antiquities became essential to their
safety, signalling, food storage and water supply. In Algeria, the French were
treading in the footsteps of the Romans, and what their predecessors had
Génie 8.1 Constantine, Carton 1, 1836-1840, M. Dureau de la Malle, Notice
topographique et historique sur les villes de Constantine et de Guelma, from the
Journal des Débats, 27 & 31 December 1836.
66 MR1314: Algérie,
E. Pellissier, Mémoire sur la Géographie ancienne de
l’Algérie, 7 August 1843, 121 pages, written at Sousse.
67 3M262: Dépôt Général de la Guerre, Impression et Gravure, Comptabilite, 18e
siècle An XII-1814.
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accomplished was used as a guide for strategy in war and colonisation, as well
as an invidious comparison with which to taunt those commanders whose actions
were not consonant with Roman actions and achievements. Chef de Génie Devay,
writing from Mascara on 11 April 1844, provides a considered review of what the
French were doing in Algeria, based on his reconaissance68 of the Habra, to the
West of Algiers. He begins: Since it is necessary at this stage of our African
domination to try and face all those grand questions which have to do with the
future development of this country, let us therefore come to grips with that
which will prove that we are indeed attached to the soil of this country, and
that we wish to base its prosperity on solid foundations independent of all
considerations external to Algeria. Here, as in all those places where projects
and useful thoughts inspire us we can find the example of previous dominations.
The first, whose traces are still written on the land, the greatest, the most
instructive of all, the Roman occupation has left here, in the valley of Ouedel-Hammam, incontestable traces of its passage in the shape of a complete city
- a city still standing in order, so to speak, to attest to the ancient
prosperity of this region. He went on to discuss the cost of erecting a dam to
re-fructify the country around (and such a dam was indeed built). He also found
canals and dikes, which leave no doubt at all that these works are antique, and
that it is possible to put them back in working order with the least possible
expense - since so many parts survive in good condition. He concluded by noting
that such work would help colonisation here, and we will then set ourselves at
last on the practical, rational and methodical path which would have assured the
Romans indefinite posession of these lands of Africa and Barbary … We shall tie
one by one the various knots of this colonising network which the political
science of the Romans thought necessary to tie up her conquest and fortify her
domination of the country.
In 1832, on 7 July, General Boyer wrote to the Minister of War recounting a
sailing expedition to the east of Algeria, with explorations on land by his AdC,
Captain Tatareau, who found at Saguid BeySultan some very remarkable structures
… several coupled capitals, crumbling vaults, column shafts, and a wall
consisting of regular courses of enormous blocks laid without mortar - remains,
so it appears, of the Late Empire - and all this written whilst the French were
hanging onto the Algerian littoral by not much more than their fingernails. But
such descriptions had a military point, which was to underline to the Minister
the value of the French presence, by contrasting the barren present with the
obviously prosperous past, marked as it was by imposing ruins. As early as
1833, the officers of the Service Topographique were employed in drawing Roman
ruins - witness the sketches of ruins and inscriptions sent to General Pelet by
Captain Levret from Oran on 18 July 1833, explicating the Itinéraire de la route
d'Oran à Azzeo69. Again, the ruins were useful, for the French were able quickly
to erect a blockhaus nearby, on a low eminence on which are be found the remains
of Roman constructions.
Unfortunately, the French preference for occupying Roman ruins could get them
into trouble. Captain Niel, who reconnoitred from the camp of Guelma in 1837,
heavily criticised70 the position the army had occupied there, which was in the
ancient citadel. This was in any case miserable in bad weather: It would have
been much preferable to build it on the road itself rather than to build some
way away amind ruins which are what is more very difficult to defend because of
Génie en Algérie, 1H403, Reconnaissances, expeditions 1844- 1847.
Reconnaissance de l’Habra, 11 April 1844..
69 3M541, Dépôt de la Guerre: Algerie 1830-1836.
70 Génie 8.1, Guelma, Carton 1, 1837-1847, Reconnaissances du Camp de Guelma, 1
March 1837.
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the enormous quarry-like field of ruins all around, and behind which an ambush
well within rifle-shot is so easy - in other words, useful as the ruins were
for the speedy rebuilding of defensible forts, the sheer quantities of debris
offered attackers too many positions from which to approach. From another
account by Niel, we learn that the ground at Guelma was covered to a depth of
some 1m50 by debros of columns of red marble, of capitals and enormous dressed
blocks which certainly belonged to public monuments. His account includes
sketches of Roman inscriptions, a close-up sketch of the walls at the corner
towers, a plan of the area, and a view of the late antique enceinte which shows
it substantially intact. All these sketches and plans, and the subsequent plans
contained in the proposals for amending the fortifications put forward in
successive years by the Engineers, are of great historical and archaeological
interest, since much of what they represent has subsequently been obliterated by
the French occupation.
Not that Niel was against the reuse of Roman remains either for the purposes of
the war effort or in bolstering a rationale for the French occupation. He
reconnoitred the route from Bone to Ras el Akba in 183771, marking Roman ruins
and roads on his sketch. He noted that the great marshy plain to the south of
Bone must have been fertile under the Romans, since we find at various points
ruins which prove that this area was inhabited and, further on, near the
Constantine bridge, the trace of a canal is clearly to be seen. Two years later,
he reconnoitred Constantine to Nedes, to determine whether a road was
practicable between Constantine and Bone, via the camp at L'Arrouch72. After
recognising the many Roman remains so far to the south that the French were
unlikely to occupy them for a long time to come, Niel noted the conveniently
situated Roman fortified posts along the way: If fortified posts were judged
necessary in between staging camps, they could be built from the very ruins of
those established by the Romans on the left bank of the oued Addarak, from which
the upper valley could be covered. And then, just as in the time of the Romans,
with the military in place, and under their protection, the French colons,
smiled upon by so beautiful a country, could at last get down to the cultivation
of the land.
During the years 1837-9 Niel made several reconnaissances in the province of
Constantine, all of which include useful comments on the antiquities73. Of
Constantine, he notes The ancient buildings have almost completely disappeared;
but one easily sees, by the surviving remains, that there were some colossal
ones … a Roman wall followed the line of today's fortifications, which is marked
out by the lie of the land … At Milah he admires a quite well-preserved Roman
bath, which leans against the fortifications, and which is defended by a Roman
wall, or a wall at least built out of the blocks of the ancient Roman citadel,
which was then of much greater extent, juding by the scattered ruins to be seen
outside the present ramparts. As for Djemilah, its ruins offer greater interest
than all those hitherto discovered in Africa. There was no later barbarian
occupation to follow that of the Romans, and only Time has destroyed her
monuments. Thus we can admire her beautiful architecture, and discover all its
forms by putting together the blocks scattered all around. For Setif, the
enceinte is described, and its utility underlined by the French plans for its
Génie 8.1 Constantine, Carton 1, 1836-1840. Reconnaissance signed 30 March
1837.
72 Génie 8.1 Constantine, Carton 1, 1836-1840., Reconnaissance faite en avril
1839 entre Constantine et la position de Nédes, projet de route entre
Constantine et Bone par le camp de L'Arrouch.
73 H227 Colonel Niel, Reconnaissances faites dans le Province de Constantine en
1837, 1838 et 1839. Quotations from pp.27-34.
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reuse: All the materials are on the site, but we will need machinery to shift
the enormous Roman blocks – that is, he really is looking at all this with a
practical eye, because he needs to determine what work would be required to put
the defences in order for a batallion of 600 men. As for the citadel of Setif,
he correctly sees that these walls are from a second occupation … gravestones,
capitals, column-shafts, form the face of the wals of both rings of
fortification - and the very size of the ruin field indicates the importance of
the Roman city. For Guelma, he notes the large quantity of columns of red marble
and beautiful cornices. The citadel is a reconstruction made with stones taken
from already ruined Roman buildings, and had already been occupied by the first
Constntine expedition in 1836.
In a hostile location with a difficult climate, and far from home, some officers
took to archaeology as a pastime, and became decidedly proprietorial in trying
to keep to themselves the results of their reconnaissances and local digs. At
Guelma in early 1837, when Colonel Duvivier took command at Guelma he produced
an Order of the Day requiring inscriptions, medals and sculptures to be
preserved - in a word, all the objects of antiquity found in the excavations
undertaken as part of making good the defences. He designated Capitaine du Genie
Haquet to look after them. But then a visiting archaeologist appeared - M.
Berbrugger who, as you know, threw himself into scientific researches here, with
the consequence that some of the material that should have been collected by the
army was being witheld and being shown to Berbrugger instead. Captain Chagny
wrote a letter to the Governor General74, protesting that this was a waste of
time: individually, the antiquities meant nothing; but assembled as they had
been by Haquet and studied with all the care and attention that they merit, they
will become precious documents for the yet uncertain history of this area of
Africa. He therefore petitioned the Governor General for another Order of the
Day giving to Haquet everything found since the foundation of the fortress, and
all items which future digs and researches will bring to light.
The importance of Roman remains such as those at Guelma is thrown into relief by
the failed First Expedition to Constantine, because Guelma is roughly half-way
between the coast at Bone, and Constantine. Several letters in the military
archives75 pointed out the utility of Guelma’s ruins for defence. One attaches
Dureau de la Malle’s account in the Journal des Débats for 27 Oct 1836, which
suggests the same: There survive at Guelma numerous ruins of Roman buildings.
The walls of the ancient citadel are sufficiently well preserved to establish
there in all security a post against Arab incursions. This was quickly done, as
we know from the Renseignement sur Constantine etc by the Commandant de Rance:
The fortifications of Guelma are built from enormous stone blocks laid in
courses; part has fallen down, and we are working at this very moment to rebuild
it, which will be done without great difficulty. And inside the walls is a large
quantity of cut stone blocks, and several stretches of wall against which we can
site lean-to shelters which would make barracks for the troops. The same dossier
contains a transcribed account of Constantine by the traveller Tchaw [sic],
including transcribed inscriptions - so the military was clearly interested in
all the information they could get on the place. Tschaw is the English traveller
Shaw, and the French recorded his description of Constantine’s triumphal arch,
called le Chateau du Géant. How were the ruins managed if the stones were so
large? Also surviving is the 15 February 1837 Note sur Guelma et les travaux
qu’on y fait by Lieutenant du Génie Goy. The first evening they were there the
Génie, 1H50: Correspondance 1837: Letter headed in MS Guelma: Instruction
publique et beaux arts, 10 august 1837, to the GG from Chagny:
75 Génie, 1H400: Affaires generales, expeditions et reconnaissances. Lettre a M.
le Commandant Maumet sur la 1ere Expedition de Constantine, 1 December 1836.
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French troops set to clear the foot of the escarpment, and to rebuild breaches
with dry stone blocks, in order to protect us from any coup de main. As for the
towers, although their vaulting is gone, they are sited in such a fashion that
rifles can be used from them. The ancient amphitheatre has had built within it a
crenellated fortress of dry stone blocks,which part of the Roman storage
magazines have been covered so as to protect our provisions from the elements.
Again, as we see from a letter of 15 February 1827 by Lieut Col de Génie
Guillemain to the Minister of War, Guelma included the ruins of an antique
temple have sheltered various food stores, and some will be roofed in with
wooden planks.
The extent of French reuse of Roman antiquities in Algeria is too great to
expound here, but a few excerpts from reconnaissances will give the tone and the
horizons of French military thinking. The camp at Khramis is sited above the
ruins of a Roman post and in a well-chosen and easily defensible position. As
for the arrangement of the camp, by the current commanding officer, the
foundations of all our buildings have been made with cubic blocks of sandstone
which made up the wall of the Roman fortifications, and in such a fashion that
should we wish at a later date to add a second storey, it will be easily
supported without fear of collapsing76. At Tlemcen, Colonel Mercier reports in
183677 that the ruins of an antique fortification, which cover the whole area,
signal by their very extent and by the care taken in their construction, the
great importance that this site once held – and he dates this enceinte to the
Middle Ages, or the Saracens. Milah is defended by a Roman wall or, at least,
one built with blocks from the ancient Roman city which was much larger than the
current settlement, judging from the scattered ruins to be found outside today's
ramparts. He then gives length and thickness of the walls. At several points
these are in a poor state but, with little expenditure, and using blocks already
on the site, we can easily get it into a defensible state.78 Between Constantine
and Stora, the traces of the Roman road which follows the cliffs are very easy
to follow, and the foundations for the bridges across the ravines are still in
place, and could even be re-used – that is, the pillars are still in place, so
they just need to build the roadway over them79. As for the fort at El-Zarour
[near Orleansville] there are Roman ruins. Amongst them are the remains of a
rectangular fortress flanked at the corners and in the middle of each courtine
by square towers of various projections. The walls themselves, several sections
of which are still standing, are more than two metres in thickness. ... This is
an excellent military position. Whilst at Kamiz des Beni Ouragh, they made a
depot: Roman remains are plentiful, and notably a large quantity of dressed
blocks which would be easy to put back in place80. The evidence of extensive
Roman settlement echoed by the ruins could also be used as a stick with which to
castigate the French, for their extent was much greater than the French could
hope to encompass: so condemning French lack of adventurousness, Pretot notes in
MR4/1315, Capitaine Koch, Memoire sur le Levée à la Boussule des environs du
Camp de Khramis des Beni Ouracs, October 1843.
77 Génie: 1H756: Tlemcen: L. Mercier, Colonel de Genie, Rapport sur la defense
de Tlemcen, 5 Feb 1836:
78 Génie, 1H401: Reconnaissances expeditions, 1838-9; Reconnaissance faite sur
Milah 10-13 Feb 1838.
79 Génie, 1H401: Reconnaissances expeditions, 1838-9, Reconnaissance faite du 6
au 12 avril [1838] entre Constantine et Stora, pp.5-8.
80 Génie, 1H402, Reconnaissances et expeditions, 1840- 1843, Rapport sur les
travaux exécutés par les troupes du Génie du 17 mai au 15 juillet 1843.
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183481 that one is struck by the ease with which the Roman roamed over this
country where we, today, seem afraid to set foot; and yet, with the exception of
the state of the roads, nothing else has changed – in other words, the natives
are still an unorganised rabble without real generals, forts or artillery. Or,
in another comment82: This African war, proportionately the most costly and the
most disastrous that we have undertaken since time immemmorial, excepting that
against Russia…
Reconnaissance & Consolidation in Algeria
Consolidation in Algeria entailed both further sorties into the interior, and
the rebuilding of antique enceintes in order to take cannon. At Djidjelli in
1849 the city walls, including those that closed off the peninsula itself, were
very seriously damaged, and with enormous gaps. For the remainder of the
ramparts of the town the old Roman walls which is easily recognisable
nevertheless has only a few sections of wall standing. But immediately the
reconstruction of the Roman wall was undertaken from the first flank to the
rocks at the West, a distance of 140 metres. After some considerable digging, he
Roman foundations were uncovered almost at sea level, and were in a sufficiently
good state to be used as the base for new walls - and, what is more, their
layout fitted well enough our defensive needs.83 At Aumale (near the ruins of
Auzia (and where everything has now disappeared), a plan of the ruins was drawn
up in 1846, the fortifications, although not completely intact, still hold
within them a mass of debris … and the majority of them still stand at two or
three metres above the ground … The regularity of these defences, and the beauty
and uniformity of the stone blocks of which they are made, give a good idea of
the work involved in their construction84. The blocks are 62-78cm high, with a
length of 68-136cm, set without cement, but with metal ties.
Because of the example set by the Romans, so enthusiastic were some
reconnaissances that the suggestions they embodied could not be implemented. In
this category is Champion de Nansouty’s suggestion that Lambessa be made a
central point of colonisation, because this is what the Romans had done85.
Likewise with Chef de Genie Gaubert’s projected military colonisation86 around
Tlemcen: the immense ruins which cover the suburbs proclaim the antique
importance of Tlemcen. The French could rebuild its importance, and re-establish
it because it is on a direct line from the Sahara to the sea: the French should
MR33/1314 Colonel Pretot Notices sur divers points du littoral de la Regence
d’Alger, consideres dans leurs rapports avec la conquête, le commerce et la
colonisation ulterieure du pays, 7 January 1834.
82 39/1617: Algérie: partie de ce qui devait etre et de ce qui ne devait pas
etre,. September 1840, p. 1.
83 Génie, 1H922: DjiDjelli, considérations générales, fortifications de la place
1840-1876, P.Durand de Villers, Lieut de Genie, Djidjelli, Mémoire générale sur
les emplacements occupés par les troupes, 24 august 1849.
84 50-51/1315 2nd Lieutenant, Richard, Mémoire et Rapport annexe au plan du poste
d’Aumale et de ses environs, 1 December 1846.
85 59-60/1317 Lieutenant Champion de Nansouty & Sub-Lieutenant Durun, Mémoire
sur Batna et Lambaessa, avec les recherches historiques, 13 August 1847, 33
pages and plans & croquis.
86 Génie,
1H756: Tlemcen, Chef de Génie Gaubert, Projet d’etablissement
militaire et agricole sur la basse Tafna, 1 June 1847.
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pay attention to the Romans, whose every vestige of domination in this country
is a lesson for us. As for the nearby position at Tikembritt, the Romans
established a fortress on this low hill. Its remains are very visible, and its
enormous extent is perfectly clear. Dressed stone blocks abound on the site, and
would suffice for the erection of a modern command post for, in our opinion, it
would be useless to try and imitate this gigantic work. But is the river
navigable to Tikembritt? Yes: careful examination of the banks of the river
shows at the foot of the rock a small area with several traces of construction:
everything leads on to believe that the Romans used this as a disembarkation
point, and nothing prevents our doing likewise. Also too optimistic is General
Charon’s 370-page Memoire militaire sur l’Algérie87, of 1848. He suggests
occupying Tebessa: Soukaras, on the Bone-Tebessa road, has good water, and
construction materials, such as lime, small stones, dressed blocks, are abundant
here. Nearby, at M’da-Ouzonch is to be found the antique Madaura, with
considerable ruins, and plenty of building materials with the exception of long
planks of wood … The site of the ancient city would be most suitable for a new
town, which could be made very regular in layout. In Roman times several ancient
roads led to Kalama, and travelling through this country one finds several
vestiges of those ancient roads which could help us in our work on building new
roads to take wagons. And at Tiaret, the Romans left some imposing ruins which
served us as foundations during our first occupation – indeed, where the remains
of the Roman fortifications, which enclosed an irregular area of 130m by 100m,
were used as much as possible. We retained in our provisional ramparts the
layout and walls of the Roman citadel.
As well as an example with which to goad the French, the ruins also allowed them
to demonstrate their superiority to the current occupants of the country. Thus
in 1846 Dr Bonnafont88 writes as follows on the ruins of Tiffech (valley of
Mersouk-Khaal): we compared these grandiose and solid constructions from
ancient times with the fragile and movable dwellings of today! He uses this to
underline the fecklessness and uncivilized character of Arabs: when this Arab
could, for over a thousand years, pass without emotion in front of these
imposing creations of Man; when he could remain indifferent to everything the
Romans achieved; when the temple at Sigus, the citadel at Tiffech, the bridge at
Constantine, the fortifications at Milah, the cisterns and the circus at
Russicata, and above all the theatre and the superb triumphal arch of Jmilah did
not awaken in the introverted soul of this stationary and indifferent people any
notion of progress towards what we call civilisation; when, I repeat, these
monuments have been unable to get any hold on the senses of the nomadic people
of Africa … should we not despair of the improvement of this race which
sacrifices everything to its habit of egoism and its mania for individual
independence? In fact, Bonnefont's 59 pages are the direct result of an
expedition in the south west of the province of Constantine, where they found
numerous ruins which remain as the truest witnesses to her ancient splendour.
Near Buduxis, they found the ancient Sigus where the spirit of progress and
perfection in the arts on the part of this distant time is translated
majestically into her temple With its twenty columns of Numidian marble, halfcrumbling on sculpted pedestals adorned with beautiful inscriptions, this
monument has resisted the ravages of time, and yet more destructive conquerors.
We admired the inscribed words which have stood out against the passage of
centuries and which, by their very freshness, seem to belong to modern times. He
then went on to Tiffech, and we dreamt before these silent and well-preserved
H229, General Charon, Mémoire militaire sur l’Algérie, 1848, 370 pages.
12/1975, printed pamphlet, Dr Bonnafont, Réflexions sur l’Algérie,
particulièrement sur la Province de Constantine, sur l’origine de cette ville,
... etc, Paris 1846.
87
88
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remains of the conquerors of the world. He is still contrasting Romans (i.e.
themselves - the French!) with the Arabs - they are nomadic, ignorant,
fatalistic, with no notion of property, and with so many proofs over the past
1000 years of barbarian resistance to all intellectual advancement. He notes
that, of all the ruined cities in the province of Numidia, it is only
Constantine which has been constantly rebuilt and inhabited by the natives but he never explains why Constantine has been so privileged, let alone
describes that city.
Conclusion: In the Steps of the Romans
It is difficult for us today to imagine how close the French could feel to their
Roman forbears, through education, culture and imperial ambition. Certainly, for
men of Napoleon's time the Roman and Greek past were more "immediate", and
painted in brighter colours, than the Middle Ages of France herself. One aspect
of the famous Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, in the 18th century, was
about precisely what weight should be attributed to the example of the ancients
in making modern painting and sculpture89. Small wonder, therefore, that
military reconnaissances were sometimes used as a framework for reporting on the
glories of the ancient world; for not only were such antiquities part of
building a scholarly picture of the past - they were also potentially of use for
military purposes, as was proved to be the case in the French takeover of
Algeria.
Modern life is perhaps insufficiently romantic to allow sentiments of close
proximity to illustrious forbears, but the French certainly felt it in their
reconnaissances through the Ottoman Empire and especially in Algeria where, like
the Romans, they went as bearers of civilization. This may be illustrated by the
magnificent gesture of Colonel Carbuccia90, Commandant at Batna, who had
developed the idea of reconstructing the geography of this ancient Roman
province. He made the city of Lambaesus rise from her ruins, and unearthed
statues of Aesculapius and Jupiter which he had conducted to Lambaesus on the
wagons of his baggage-train, and had the drums beaten as they passed. d. ncu le
projet de reconsttituer la geographie de cette ancienne province romaine. This
in itself would have been sufficient; but Carbuccia also had his men rebuild a
funerary monument to the Centurion Quintus Flavius Maximus, added the
inscription The Colonel of the Foreign Legion to his colleague of the Legion of
Augustus – and then passed his men in review in honour of his ancient
predecessor. As Louis Bertrand remarked91, we should admire him for this single
deed, which has great historical significance He certainly was not the first
French officer to grasp, in front of a Roman ruin, the sense of the continuity
of Roman civilisation. But this Corsican, by proclaiming himself in front of the
mausoleum of Flavius Maximus, as the inheritor and successor of the Roman, has
truly woven history into an unbroken stream. Like a modern Caesar, his
Y. Benot, editor, Diderot et Falconet: le pour et le contre. Correspondance
polémique sur le respect de la posterite…, Paris 1958.
90 J.
Balteau etc editors, Dictionnaire de Biographie Française, Paris 1933ff.,
vol 7: Jean-Lucien-Sebastien-Bonaventure CARBUCCIA, general. Bastia 14 July
1808, St Cyr 1825. Takes part in the Campaign of Algiers in 1830, and
distinguishes himself. Captain in 1834; Lieut-Colonel, then Colonel in 1848,
commanding the 2nd regiment of the Legion Etrangere; important part in the
expedition of 1849. Called to Paris 1850, general 1852. Given a brigade at the
Crimea, but disembarked at Gallipoli in June 1854 and died 17th July of cholera.
91 Les villes d’or: Algerie et Tunisie romaines, Paris 1921, p.
43.
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compatriot Napoleon, he has reclaimed for the Gauls an abandoned Latin heritage.
Gustave Boissière92 writes a modern epitaph for the French invasion of Algeria,
less optimistic than that of Flavius Maximus, and again contrasting his
countrymen unfavourably with the ancient Romans they sought to emulate: the
conquest of Algeria brought to light amongst our conquering nation every talent
except that for colonising.
Carbuccia therefore did what cultured European dreamed of doing, namely making
direct contact with the Romans as the very ancestors of their own civilisation.
French military reconnaissances, if a small part of that explosion of interest
in ancient architecture via travel that characterise the years since circa 1750,
are important because of their ligh levels of detail and accuracy about lands
much changed over the past century, and hence much poorer in antiquities.
92
L’Algérie Romaine, 2nd rev. aug. edition, 2 vols, Paris 1883, p.127.
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