Chapter XI – Empire Under Siege
The new Sultan took over at a time of crisis. Wars raged on all fronts but that of Tunis itself, which was simply blockaded. In Kenya, the local Tunisian army was counterattacking the Portuguese in Waijir; in Crete, the 3rd Poeni Corps ‘Cartagena’ was guarding Chania while the Portuguese were occupying Iraklion. In the Levant, Egypt was being stubborn while the Dutch landed an army in Beirut.
It seemed like the nations of Europe were saying ‘Tunis Delenda Est’ again, and it was at times like these that monarchs learned the meaning of humility and sacrifice. Although the loss of Crete was deemed unacceptable, it took great pressure from his minister of war to persuade him to not cave in to Dutch demands. So the fight was kept up against all enemies. Tunis was not going to make its debut as a great power by ceding its territories without a proper fight. And fight it did.
In September, the 2nd Poeni Corps ‘Constantine’ attacked the Dutch beachhead in Beirut. The Dutch were clearly much better trained and organized than the Tunisians, but numbers showed and in the end the Dutch were defeated.
As if to offer congratulations on that victory and heap prestige upon glory, news came from Africa that Tunisian explorers had discovered the source of the Nile. The news filled the Tunisian people with patriotism and the desire to fight on.
A couple of weeks later, the Portuguese attacked Chania. The 3rd Poeni Corps had been ordered to cede no further ground to the enemy – it was to be either victory or destruction. And so they fought, outnumbered but well led and well motivated.
In December 1902, the first of the three wars came to its conclusion with the ceding of Palestine and Dumyat by Egypt to Tunis.
Meanwhile, the 1st Poeni Corps ‘Tunis’, after plundering Cairo had marched south along the Nile until it reached Dutch Asmara. Its orders were to deprive the Dutch of their supply posts there and then link up with the Somalian army, in support of the latter’s operations.
Tunis, by that time, was unmistakably a wartime economy, to the extent that the close relations between the military and industry became entrenched in a military-industrial complex.
By then, public debt had reached over 12,000 pounds, over two thirds of which was to the Bank of Tunis. However, peace with Egypt allowed the economy to breathe some more, while the first Portuguese attack on Chania was repelled with great casualties.
With the new year, in Kenya the Battle of Marsabit formed the turning point in the operations against the Portuguese on that front.
The Tunisian forces would proceed to pursue the enemy and liberate the regions they had occupied. But Russia, until then content to add its fleet to Portugal’s blockading squadrons, decided to go in deeper by claiming Valencia and landing a small army there. The Tunisian garrison consisted of a single local brigade, but a plan was hatched to reinforce it with troops from Tunis, involving the cooperation of Catalonia.
Meanwhile, in Asmara, the Dutch army headed back to engage the 2nd Poeni Corps, which was active in that region, and attacked it in March.
While that fight raged, the Tunisian clipper fleet sneaked past the enemy patrols and landed an army in Barcelona, from where it would march down to Valencia.
The Russian forces were engaged in May, as the Portuguese attempted a second assault on Chania, while losing ground in Africa.
Only days later, perhaps sensing weakness, the USA declared war on Russia, to take Russian Idaho, while the 1st Poeni Corps won the Battle of Assab.
The wars were finally looking up, when another one of the old-time enemies of Tunis decided to join in.
This time even Switzerland declared that it had had enough. Sweden, once welcomed as a Class 1 threat, was now a strong naval power with a large army. It wanted the Balearic Islands and it knew it had the clout to take them.
Later that month, a spirited counterattack saw the Portuguese defeated in Iraklion. Their elimination on that island would only be a matter of days.
The addition of Swedish squadrons to the Mediterranean meant that the Tunisian ships had even less freedom of movement, and so the Swedes landed unopposed in the Balearics in September.
A month later, the Netherlands, seeing the futility of the war sued for a white peace. It was gratefully accepted at once.
That took some pressure off the empire, but the Russians saw fit to keep it up elsewhere, by attacking Lebanon. Tunisian troops, rested after their operations against Egypt, made haste to engage the enemy, even though they appeared to be stronger.
That last battle in Askaleh was to be the last act in a pointless war, since the Portuguese had lost in Crete and Kenya and the Russians had lost in Valencia. Early in 1904, a white peace was signed and Tunis found itself at war with just Sweden.
However, Sweden was no push-over. After occupying the Balearic Islands, their expeditionary force was ferried to Valencia, where it proved too much for the Tunisian army stationed there.
Realizing that the war would be won or lost at sea, Muhammad IV ordered a large ship-building program, with many steam transports and commerce raiders constructed in Tunis, Crete and Valencia.
By November, although the commerce raiders were still under construction, the steam transports were tested against the enemy frigates with success, owed partially to a good admiral.
With naval power steadily growing, an army could eventually be ferried to the Balearics, while the Swedish expeditionary force lost time wearing down the Tunisian fortifications south of Valencia.
In May Catalonia entered the Tunisian sphere of influence, the first nation to do so, while the Tunisian army attacked the Swedish positions. The two armies were equal in numbers but the Swedes were better armed and trained and proceeded to wear down the Tunisian attack.
The battle was lost, but fresh troops were brought in and so in September the Swedes were tricked into attacking in the hills of Alicante, where reinforcements were brought in, while more troops maneuvered to surround the battlefield.
That victory cost the Swedes more than 34,000 men, and left the Tunisian brigades free reign to liberate Cartagena and its surrounding provinces. A second Swedish Expeditionary Force appeared in Djibouti, defeating the Tunisian army there, but by then it was too late for Sweden. The growing Tunisian navy had swept the enemy squadrons from the Mediterranean and would not allow any more to sail in. Sweden realized the futility of further operations, and it offered a white peace in December 1905 which Tunis, by then constructing its first four monitors, accepted.
That peace treaty was well timed to see Tunis become a member of the Olympic Organizing Committee, its promise of world peace extended like a crown to the long-suffering Tunisians.
For a few more months Tunis enjoyed untroubled prosperity, and Sultan Muhammad was pleased to be informed that the nation’s industrial score exceeded the 2000 mark. Then, in April, the populace which had sustained and sacrificed so much in the previous years finally exploded in a large anarcho-liberal revolution.
Nowhere was revolutionary fervor more strong than in Valencia, where the people still remembered the Spanish revolutions in the anarcho-liberal cause.
On 11 May 1906 Muhammad IV died, allegedly in a paroxysm of rage at the news of rebel victories in Valencia. He was succeeded by Muhammad V.