| Summary/Abstract |
Military violence against noncombatants in the French conquest of Algeria (1830–1847) resulted as much from the actions of ordinary soldiers as from commanders and politicians. This article examines the justifications that officers used to explain their attacks on noncombatants in North Africa. Instead of using the well-known twentieth-century excuse for atrocity, that the participant was following orders from above, nineteenth-century officers tended to justify controversial acts as necessary to the preservation of the lives of their soldiers and indigenous allies. Reports from lieutenants and captains on French expeditions at Miliana (1840) and Dahra (1845) suggest that low-ranking soldiers had more agency in escalating violence against noncombatants than did their leaders. Eyewitness accounts reveal that soldiers’ emotions such as fear, anger, and greed drove violence against North African noncombatants.
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