[9] This desire of Emir Abdelkader to face the French again, even after signing the treaty, led him to claim under this pact all the territory east of Oued Boudouaou [ar] among the Kabyles of Beni Aïcha and which in fact included the main road between Algiers and Constantine.

[13] The general then ordered Colonel Maximilien Joseph Schauenburg to prepare an expedition by land and sea to attack the relief and shelter of Emir Abdelkader among the Beni Aïcha to dislodge this nebula made up of dozens of villages which were stationed not far from Algiers.

[18] Despite the bad weather that had fallen in the middle of May 1837 on Mitidja and Kabylia, Colonel Schauenburg left on the night of 17 May 1837 from his camp in Réghaïa to descend towards the ravine of Oued Boudouaou on which he had assembled a military column of two thousand men to attack the Beni Aïcha.

[20] Colonel Schauenburg was held back with his thousands of soldiers by rain and wind in his sustained night march before reaching the Meraldene ravine only at eight in the morning of the next day 18 May 1837, where groups of Kabyles awaited him to counter it and to hinder its advance in Kabylia if it managed to cross the bed of Oued Isser.

[28] Schauenburg ordered to quickly drive out the surprised populations with their herds to accost them on the beach of Oued Merdja where no disembarkation had taken place because of the showers and hail, and this is how the Kabyle men and animals arrived at escape from the trap and the bee-eater that had been given to them.

[30] Schauenburg realized that a longer stay in the country of the Beni Aïcha insurgents would attract him, without good possible result since Kabyles reinforcements and forces was greater than the strength of his military column, hence his announced and planned defeat.