BATNA

Baptized in 1848 at the northern entrance to the city of Batna inaugural stone was gone! If the majority of people are unaware of Batna this stele, which materializes somehow a prelude to the creation of the city, many of Batnéens knows its location and existence. The archives of the province department and indicate in detail the history of this monument.

In 1848, the Duc d'Aumale had to go south of Constantine to control the rebels stationed throughout the massif of the Aures and allow a breakthrough towards the south. Thus he is accompanied by senior officers of the colonial army, he arrived in Patna where he erected this stone opening.

Located at the entrance on a hill near El Oued Gourzi (red bridge) it was (the stone) at the same time the starting point for the establishment of a military garrison (district camp Dar El General) exists forever. The first name given by the colonial army in the capital of the Aures was "New Lambèse" (Decree of September 12, 1848), which creates a European city by that name in connection with Lambèse and penitentiary built under Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon arrival of the colonial army, three main tribes living in the basin between Ich Jebel Ali Gabel and Belezma. It is Aith Chlih whose inhabitants lived between Hamla (Condorcet) and Taghit (Victor Duray), aith Sidi Yahia whose inhabitants lived Forage Park, part of Bouakal and up Lambèse, Ouled Aadi (of Hilali origin) living in the south-west of the city on the axis Tamachit, Bouakal Z'mala and also a part of Kechida. Works that citizens but also historians have found through the web of them, and show in a formal way, the name Batna existed well before the arrival of the colonial army. The travel book historian and adventurer English (Schune) reported that before 1830, passing through the region (now Patna), he met people who occupied the whole plain, and they gave it Bathnt place name in Berber (Chaoui). Assumptions of the camp or the battalion in North Africa is a pure colonial creation. On where the inaugural stone was (which is a historical heritage) a large site was created for the realization of a bus station in the outskirts of the town.