Editing Thomas Robert Bugeaud (section)

=== Razzias and military policy ===
One economic opportunity for native Algerians under French rule was service in native regiments, this not only granted certain tribes [[Tax exemption|tax exemptions]] in exchange for service - under a similar arrangement that had been practiced under the [[Regency of Algiers|Ottoman Regency]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> But it also netted friendly tribes a share of the loot obtained from raids undertaken.<ref name=":1" />  

Bugeaud was influenced by French experience in the [[War in the Vendée|Vendee]], [[Peninsular War#Iberia in revolt|Spain]] and also native warfare in innovating French [[military doctrine]] to meet the challenges posed by the little war in Algieria.<ref name=":1" />

But the change in French fortunes against Algerian resistance is not solely a product of Bugeaud's doctrinal and organisational reforms, his predecessors operated with less resources and manpower when Bugeaud assumed the governor-generalship total French forces in Algeria comprised some 60,000 men, by 1847 this was 109,000.<ref name=":1" /> 

Bugeaud was especially keen to recruit native cavalry as to match the capabilities of his opponents and to provide mobility to his flying columns.<ref name=":1" /> One of Bugeaud's major changes in policy compared to his predecessors was a reduce the number of garrisons substantially, in arguing for this change in policy he argued to the war minister on the basis of the [[Russian conquest of Chechnya and Dagestan#The war as a siege|Russian failures to suppress resistance in the Caucasus]].<ref name=":1" />

{{Quotation|text=You have under your very eyes eighteen years of unsuccessful attempts by the Russians  to  establish  their  rule  over  Circassia  (...)  Were  their  hundreds  of outposts of any use? Did they enable them to subjugate the country?|author=Bugeaud|title=A letter from Bugeaud to War Minister Marshal Soult|source=Thoral (2015)}}

With reduced garrisoning requirements as well as greater forces available to him Bugeaud was able to increase the number of  and size of his '[[Flying column|flying columns]]', one of Bugeauds typical columns consisted of 4,000 [[Infantry#History|infantrymen]], 2,000 [[Cavalry#France|French Cavalrymen]], 1,000 native [[Spahi|Spahis]] and 3 batteries of artillery.<ref name=":1" /> In the artillery too there was a marked difference from his predecessors who had favoured larger calibres, Bugeaud emphasised lighter guns especially [[Mountain artillery|mountain batteries]] for their ability to keep pace with other elements of the column.<ref name=":1" />

The 'flying columns' undertook Razzias as a putative measures against tribes who had been hostile to France. Killing was often indiscriminate, and those not killed were kept in French camps providing additional leverage for their tribe to make peace. Crops were burnt and livestock taken, this had a significant effect on the native Algerian population, whose numbers collapsed from estimates of 3 million in 1830 before the French conquest to 2.5 million by 1851.<ref name=":3" />

French officers under Bugeaud's command justified raids on the basis that the Algerian hinterland by virtue of being an [[agrarian economy]] had no industrial or political centre by which an army could siege or capture and thus win a campaign and thus to wage war they must target the productive heart of the Algerian rural economy - agriculture.<ref name=":1" />

In terms of personnel, in contrast to the situation he inherited was a revolving door of officers, he emphasised the need for army officers who had experience in Algeria to remain there, suggesting in his published work financial incentives to make that possible.<ref name=":2" />