Siege of Laghouat
1852 CE.
Shown on the map at 33.800°, 2.883°.
The siege of Laghouat was an episode of the French pacification of Algeria. General Aimable Pélissier commanding an army of 6,000, besieged the city of Laghouat from 21 November until 4 December 1852, when the city capitulated. The brutal treatment of the inhabitants was part of the scorched earth tactic of the French army and one of the first instances of recorded use of chemical weapon on civilians. The storming of Laghouat turned quickly into several days of massacres to punish the population that was treated as combating enemies. The battle also witness the several deaths on the French side including that of general Bouscaren, that added to the fervor of the French soldiers to want to take revenge on the population setting an example for other towns and cities throughout the south of Algeria. About two thirds (2,500 to 3,000 out of a total of 4,500 inhabitants remaining in the besieged city) including women and children were massacred. The massacre left a deep trauma in the Laghouati population that endures to this day. The year when the city was emptied of its population is still known to the inhabitants of Laghouat as "the year of the Khalya", meaning "emptiness" in Arabic.
Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Laghouat, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.