Forthassa Gharbia
place in Naâma, Algeria
Forthassa Gharbia (or Forthassa Rharbia) is a small settlement in western Algeria near the Moroccan border, to the west of Aïn Séfra. During the French colonial era it was important as a military post.
Forthassa Gharbia is a waterhole on the High Plateaux between the Tell and Saharan Atlas ranges. It lies slightly to the west of a line between Teniet el Sassi and the oasis of Ich, and therefore was technically within Moroccan territory, but in 1904 the boundary between Morocco and Algeria had not been delimited in this region, and there was no protest when the French occupied it.
The French advance post at Forthassa Gharbia was established in March 1904 by Hubert Lyautey to ensure that the Beni Guil, a Moroccan tribe, accepted French rule.
The post closed the dangerous pass of Jebel Grouz, cutting off the Beni Guil from their allies.
By 1904 the pacification had mostly been achieved with little need for fighting.
For some time after establishing their protectorate over Morocco the French considered Forthassa Gharbia to be in Morocco, although the post was manned by Algerian troops.
The troops collected the zekat tax on animals from the Beni Guil, a Moroccan tribe, in the name of the Moroccan government,
and this money was used to maintain the post.
However, eventually the French decided the post was in Algeria, drawing the boundary to the west of it.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Forthassa Gharbia” is place in Naâma, Algeria. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Forthassa, Gharbia and place, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 9, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q15218235. Authority coordinates are 32.842, -1.245. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904.
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This entry incorporates text from “Forthassa Gharbia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.