Bizerte

History

Small counter founded around 1100 av. J. - C. by the Phéniciens, the city passes under the influence of Carthage after the defeat of Aghatocle during the Punic Wars. It is then occupied by the Romains under the name of Hippo Diaritus or Zaritus. Its conquest erases of a feature nine centuries of punic history. Dismantled, the city sees its territory passing under the cut of Utique which takes the party of Rome. It will be necessary a long time so that a new Roman city sets up in the place of the punic site of Hippo Diarrhytus.

The city is then conquered by the Moslem armed which gives him its current name. Starting from 1050, the surge of the tribes hilaliennes causes the collapse of the State ziride and the country bursts in a multitude of small independent principalities. Bizerte does not escape separatist temptation. The restoration of the authority almohade announces a new rupture: a few 20 years later, the Ifriqiya reaches the autonomous statute of province and sees emerging the Dynastie hafside.

In 1535, the troops of Charles Quint take the city, but the Turks drive out them in 1574. She knows then, thanks to her port, her first great boom. Base Pirate S, the number of the captive Christian exceeds the 20.000 at the beginning of the 18th century. In reaction, the city undergoes the Bombardement marine of the king de France in 1681. The 4 and July 5th 1770, the Escadre of the count de Broves bombard the city again and destroy the installations of the port. In 1784 and 1785, in fact the Vénitiens bombard the city and the port with incendiary bombs.

The abolition of piracy in 1818 could have carried a fatal blow in Bizerte but the lake, in which reproduce Dorade S, Sole S, mules, wolves and pageots so easy to trap when they regain the sea by borrowing the channel which crosses the city, compensates for during a few years these losses of revenue. Bizertins thus become fishing and it is per hundreds of tons that the fish is exported each year towards Tunis, the Italy and France. In 1786, a Décret beylical grants to France the exclusive rights fishing of the Corail. The smugglers follow at once and, in 1800, one estimates the number of corailleurs with 8000. Génois, Catalans, Vénitiens, Siciliens, Pisans, Corsica S and Marseillais, they found many warehouses and of trade in the small island of R' baâ but put only one about fifty year to destroy the coral solid masses. In 1850, they are nothing any more but 2000.

France obtains the primacy of the city at the time of the Traité of Berlin in 1878 and then undertakes the construction of a large military port on the model of that of Toulon because of the strategic role of the city on the Détroit of Sicily. Thus, a channel is dug to connect the Mediterranean to the Lake Bizerte where roads are arranged. On the other side of the lake is founded the city of Ferryville which is called today Menzel Bourguiba.

At the time of the Second world war, the city is occupied in November 1942 by the German then, after to have bombarded it many times, the American take again it the May 7th 1943.

In spite of the independence granted to Tunisia in 1956, France preserves the base of Bizerte until in 1963, which involves many tensions between Tunisia of Habib Bourguiba and France of Charles de Gaulle which reach their paroxysm at the time of the Crise of Bizerte.

The city is today turned towards the Tourisme in spite of the strong presence of the Tunisian Armée (Bizerte is the greatest air base of Tunisia).

Strategic port

Before the work undertaken by the French, the communication between the lake and the sea are established by two channels taking their origin in the old port and meeting before reaching the lake. Their contours give an original aspect to Bizerte which is called “Venice African” with its “bridge of the Sighs”. These two envasés channels and not having that a depth from one to two meters cannot be easily used for the navigation of large Navire S. Aussi decides one to cut the Isthme of Sable which separates the lake from the sea and to create a new channel and a new port in the east of the city. The channel will measure 800 to 900 meters of length, 100 meters broad and nine meters of depth. The port must become most important of Tunisia and 4th of French Africa (after Oran, Philippeville and Bône).

The Admiral Theophilus Aube, during his passage to the ministry for the navy, projects to transform the old port but cannot that to make operate some Dragage S. It is in 1890 that the work conceded at the Hersent house starts and Couvreux to put in communication the lake with the sea and to transform the Rade into a sure shelter. To this end, one decides to build two large thrown, a length of approximately kilometers each one, protecting an extent from Littoral of 1,8 kilometers and forming an outer harbor of a Superficie of more than 100 Hectare S. Between the pierheads of the two piers, an opening of 400 meters allows the simultaneous and easy entry several ships. To achieve this important work, the Company of the port of Bizerte uses the career of Ain Meriem, located at four kilometers in the north of the city, which provides the blocks of Granit that a Railroad with Narrow gauge railway brings until on the Digue. The piers, once finished, protect the entry from the channel against the Tempête S and the silting.

Random links: