Algiers Captured

Relations between France and the Ottoman regency of Algiers had deteriorated over unpaid French debts for grain supplied during the Napoleonic era. In 1827, during a dispute over the matter, the dey of Algiers struck the French consul with a fly whisk, an insult the French government seized upon, along with threats to French trading rights.

Using the affront as a pretext, and partly to bolster the unpopular monarchy of Charles X at home, France mounted a large naval and military expedition against Algiers. French forces landed in June 1830 and captured the city in July 1830, deposing the dey and ending Ottoman authority there.

The fall of Algiers marked the beginning of more than a century of French rule in Algeria. The conquest of the interior proved long and bloody, met by sustained resistance, most famously under Abd al-Qadir during the 1830s and 1840s. Algeria was gradually annexed and settled by Europeans, becoming the centrepiece of France's colonial empire in North Africa.