Did the Establishment of the Protectorate in Tunisia Owe More to Internal Collapse or to External Pressure?

Did the Establishment of the Protectorate in Tunisia owe more to Internal Collapse or to External Pressure?

This essay will discuss the motivations, particularly in terms of external and internal factors, behind the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunisia in 1881. It will discuss the link between external and internal factors and argue that internal collapse was essentially a product of long-term external pressure. By discussing factors such as French national pride, European rivalry, the role of Bismarck, Tunisian instability and the French desire to protect Algeria, this essay will come to the conclusion that it was external pressure from European rivals, particularly Italy, which motivated France to establish a protectorate so as to protect Algeria. The internal instability caused by long-term European political and economic penetration certainly encouraged the French to intervene and produced an unstable climate which France wanted to secure, but it was the overtures of the Italians which threatened French hegemony in North Africa and Algeria in particular which was the decisive reason for establishing the protectorate; certainly an external pressure.

The link between internal collapse and external pressure is important to understand because long term external interference was the source of internal economic and social woes which were a concern for the French in the years leading up to 1881 and have been argued as a primary cause of occupation. The instability and economic failure in Tunisia in the 1860s and 1870s was the result of a process which began as soon as the French took Algeria in 1830. Economic and political penetration enacted by both the French and British, particularly in Ahmad bey’s reign (1837-1855) was the root cause of the volatility of Tunisia (demonstrated by the revolt in 1864). Their influence led to Ahmad bey spending huge amounts of Tunisia’s wealth on a modernizing program and as Perkins says ‘Tunisia’s modernization and its...