Algeria, Tunisia

TN 388

2 colonial postcards of Laghouat. Laghouat was a center of resistance against French colonial rule from 1831 under Sheikh Moussa Ibn Hassen El Misri. In 1852, France launched a punitive campaign to eradicate the resistance. The Siege of Laghouat began on 21 November and concluded with the storming of the town on 4 December. Several days of brutal massacres followed, which included one of the first recorded uses of chemical weapons on civilians. About two-thirds of the population perished, which became known locally as the Khalya (Arabic: emptiness). It also started a local tradition of protecting young boys from evil with an earring (then done to disguise them as girls). Other settlements quickly capitulated following the example set at Laghouat.

Price: $60.00

TN 387

3 colonial postcards of Kouba and Khenchela. Some issued during the Independence war. In 1982, a mass grave containing more than 1200 corpses from the war of Algeria was discovered in Khenchela. It would be the largest ever discovered in Algeria. The authorities and the Algerian press attributed it to the French army, while others disputed this and suggested the victims may have been French harkis.

Price: $90.00

TN 386

8 early colonial postcards of Philippeville. Mostly architectural. The Battle of Philippeville, also known as the Philippeville massacre or the August Offensive, was a series of raids launched on 20 August 1955 on various cities and towns of the Constantine region by FLN insurgents and armed mobs during the Algerian War between France and the Algerian rebels. The raids, which mostly took the form of ethnic riots, resulted in the massacre of several dozens of European settlers, known as pieds-Noirs. The massacres were then followed by reprisals by the French army and pied-noir vigilantes, which resulted in the death of several thousand Muslim Algerians. The events of late August 1955 in the Constantinois region are considered to be a major turning point of the Algerian War.

Price: $240.00

TN 385

Colonial postcard of Orleansville (current name is Chlef). On 9 September 1954 an earthquake killed at least 1,243 people and injured 5,000. At that time the town had a population of 44,400 inhabitants. It was the home of the Algerian Division of the artistic group Lettrist International (LI), some of whom died in the earthquake. Mohamed Dahou survived and went on to become involved in the Situationist International. The LI described the town as "the most lettrist city in the world". Issued during the Independence War period.

Price: $30.00

TN 384

26 colonial postcards of Oran. Mostly architectural interest. Some cards posted during the Independence War period.

Price: $810.00

TN 383

3 colonial postcards of Sidi -Bel-Abbes. Architectural interest. From the 1830s until 1962 the city was closely associated with the French Foreign Legion, being the location of its basic training camp, and the headquarters of its 1st Foreign Regiment. In the 1930s much of the old city walls were demolished. Wide boulevards and squares replaced the traditional quarters, causing the town to lose much of its former character.

Price: $90.00

TN 382

2 colonial postcards of Souk-Ahras. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), Souk Ahras housed the Ouled Bechiah Mounts as an autonomous military base of the Army of National Liberation (ALN), called "Basis of the East".

Price: $60.00

TN 381

Two colonial postcards of Saida. Modern Saïda was founded as a French military outpost in 1854 and once housed a regiment of the French Foreign Legion. Its growth was stimulated by the arrival of the Oran-Béchar (narrow-gauge) railway in 1862.

Price: $60.00

TN 380

16 colonial postcards of Setif. The Sétif and Guelma massacre (also called the Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres or the massacres of 8 May 1945) was a series of attacks by French colonial authorities and pied-noir European settler militias on Algerian civilians in 1945 around the market town of Sétif, west of Constantine, in French Algeria. In response to French police firing on demonstrators at a protest on 8 May 1945, native Algerians rioted in the town. Others attacked French settlers (colons) in the surrounding countryside, resulting in 102 deaths. The French colonial authorities and European settlers retaliated by killing an estimated 6,000 to 45,000 Muslims in the region. Both the outbreak and the indiscriminate nature of official and settler retaliation marked a turning point in Franco-Algerian relations, leading to the Algerian War of 1954–1962.

Price: $480.00

TN 379TN 379

46 colonial postcards of smaller towns in Algeria, namely: Timimou, Tindouf, Tiaret, Tebessa, Sfax, Sidi-Ferruch, Sidi-Okba, Saint-Denis-Du-Sig, Sidi-Bou-Medine, Staoueli, Relizane, Port-Say, Perregaux, Pointe Pescade Oudaghir, Ouargla, Mostaganem, Marnia, Mers-El-Kebir, Mac Mahon, La Meskiana, Lamy, Le Kreider, Guyotville, Gabes, Hammam-R’hira, In-Salah, El-Aricha, El-Golea, Djidjelli, Collo, Beni-Saf, Bou-Denib, Aumale. A number of postcards used during the Independence War period. Architectural and colonial interest mainly.

Price: $1380.00