[5] This alliance quickly proved to be a subordination – a decree of 1845 abolished the khalifalik of Medjana so that when Mohamed succeeded his father, his title was no more than "Bachagha [fr]" (Turkish: başağa = chief commander), and was part of the administration of the Bureaux arabes.

In 1870, the creditors demanded to be repaid and the French authorities reneged on the loan on the pretext of the Franco-Prussian War, leaving Mohamed forced to pawn his own possessions.

On June 12, 1869, Marshall MacMahon, the Governor General, advised the French government that "the Kabyles will stay peaceful as long as they see no possibility of driving us out of their country.

The settlers, hostile to Napoleon III and strongly Republican, took advantage of the fall of the Second Empire to push forward their anti-military agenda.

At the same time, ordinary people were concerned about the imposition of civilian rule on March 9, 1870, which they interpreted as imposing domination by the settlers, with encroachments on their land and loss of autonomy.

They were composed with a president "amin", a treasurer named a "ukil" and some men of the village elected to verify the members (patrilineage) or because they are really elder.

The spahis (Muslim cavalry troopers in the French Army of Africa) refused to be sent to fight in metropolitan France,[17] claiming that they were only required to serve in Algeria.

It took on a particular significance for the Rezgui family, whose members maintained that France, recently defeated by the Prussians, was a spent force and that now was the time for a general uprising.

The Hanenchas responded to this call, killing fourteen colonists in their territory; Souk Ahras was besieged from 26th to 28 January, before being relieved by a French column, who then put down the insurgency and condemned five men to death.

In reply, Mokrani wrote to General Augeraud, subdivisional commander at Sétif:[19] "You know the matter which puts me at odds with you; I can only repeat to you what you already know – I do not wish to be the agent of the civil government.....

The same day, Si Aziz, son of Cheikh al-Haddad, head of the Rahmaniyya order, proclaimed a holy war in the market of Seddouk.

[12] The military authorities brought in reinforcements for the Army of Africa; Admiral de Gueydon, who took over as Governor General on March 29, replacing Special Commissioner Alexis Lambert [fr], mobilised 22,000 soldiers.

[1] Advancing from Palestro towards Algiers, the rebels were stopped at Boudouaou (Alma) on April 22, 1871, by colonel Alexandre Fourchault under the command of General Orphis Léon Lallemand; on May 5,[1] Cheikh Mokrani was killed alongside El Hadj Bouzid at Soufflat, halfway between Lakhdaria (Palestro) and Bouïra in an encounter with the troops of General Félix Gustave Saussier [fr].

[1] After the end of the hostilities of the insurrection of Cheikh Mokrani, the Algerian rebel leaders who were captured alive appeared before the Assize Court of Algiers on December 27, 1872, on a count of indictment and an act of accusation linked to the sacking of the French colonies, the assassinations, fires and looting which sparked heated debates on this extremely important affair.

After reading the indictment, including the whole so-called Palestro affair, which lasted about an hour and a half, the president of the assize court urged the jurors to follow on the notebook that was given to them, and where the name of each offender was written at the top of a page, the individual examination which will be carried out and to take notes due to the length of the debates.

The leaders of the Mokrani Revolt after their capture and trial in 1873 were either executed, subjected to forced labor, or deported and exiled to the Pacific and New Caledonia.

[37] There will be around 5 deaths at sea and on November 10, of the same year, the ship "La Loire" left Nouméa to return to France after having disembarked the convicts from Kabylie.

[39][40] In Mémoires d'un Communard, Jean Allemane evokes a deadly epidemic of dysentery which decimated the transported people that La Loire had just landed, and who were buried in large numbers.

[45] However Louis-José Barbançon reports that on the civil status registers of the Bagne of L'Île-des-Pins, which were very well kept, only 28 deaths of convicts who came by "La Loire" appeared in the 6 months after arrival of the ship.