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His beneficent intentions were all to be frustrated by
the ambition of a European nation which was to signally fail, not in the
work of conquering Abd-el-Kader, but in turning her conquest to good
account.
Hastily drawn treaties are a prolific source of war. The Treaty of the
Tafna was a flagrant example of this class of diplomatic documents.
There were two drafts: one in Arabic, with the Sultan's seal; the other
in French, with Bugeaud's. The drafts were not carefully compared. The
limits of territory assigned to each of the parties were not made clear.
One instance of the lack of identity in the two forms of the instrument
will suffice. The French form declared that Abd-el-Kader acknowledged
the sovereignty of France. The Sultan had never dreamed of making an
admission which, in its effect on the tribes, would have cost him his
throne. What he had written, in Arabic, in the article which he
subscribed, was, properly translated, "The Emir Abd-el-Kader
acknowledges that there is a French Sultan, and that he is great.


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