French Conquest of AlgeriaAlgeria · 1830-1847“Listen to Algeria at the beginning of the long wound, when France arrived with a pretext and stayed with an army.”France invaded Algiers in 1830 after a diplomatic quarrel was turned into a reason for war. The city fell quickly, but the conquest of Algeria was not the taking of one harbour; the interior still had to be forced to kneel.The lesson the elders kept: A conquest built by terror does not become legitimate because it lasts. Algeria teaches that the first violence of empire can speak again generations later.