Everywhere, the countryside was burned, enemies were massacred, and women were raped. Most often, the officers gloried in these practices and did not seek to reestablish discipline. In time, the procedures for punishment became more elaborate. In Kabylia and at oases, the army set fire to ksours (fortresses) and villages, and what they did above all was cut down fig trees and palm trees, causing irreparable ruin.

Scandal broke out in 1845, with the affair of Colonel Aimable Pélissier’s smoking out of insurgents from the caves of Dahra, Pélissier having refused to let these insurgents live, despite their promises to surrender and pay a ransom. The crime this officer committed there was not some isolated incident, as it was preceded and followed by other fires and massacres in the course of the conquest.

https://www.sciencespo.fr/artsetsocietes/en/archives/1376

Tony Johannot (1803-1852), Les grottes du Dahra (The caves of Dahra), 1845, 27 x 19 cm, etching excerpted from a work by Pierre Christian (1811-1872), L’Afrique française, l’empire de Maroc et les déserts de Sahara . . . (Paris: A. Barbier, [1846]). Private collection.