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The news reached Abd-el-Kader at Tekedemt. He sprang on his horse, and
in forty-eight hours, riding night and day, was at Medea, whence he
despatched a reproachful and defiant letter to the French Governor. He
called the tribesmen to arms, formally declared war, swept down on the
plains, destroyed the French cantonments, agricultural establishments,
and outposts; slew many colonists, burned the villages and drove
panic-stricken fugitives headlong into the city of Algiers. The French
Government then ostentatiously declared the adoption of a firm policy
and announced Algeria to be "henceforth and forever a French province."
Reenforcements were rapidly sent to Algiers, and the effective army of
Valee was soon raised to thirty thousand men. The Sultan headed about
the same number of cavalry, regular and irregular, and six thousand
regular infantry. A fair trial of strength, Frenchman against Arab, was
now to be made.
Concentrating his army at Blidah, at the foot of the lesser Atlas range,
the French Marshal marched on Medea and Millana.


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