The battle began at four-thirty in the morning. Algerian forces, gathered in a large camp on the Staoueli plateau west of Algiers, descended to attack the two French divisions that had landed five days earlier at the nearby peninsula of Sidi Ferruch. The Algerian assault was led by Ibrahim Agha, commanding a force of tribal levies and Ottoman janissaries assembled from across the Regency's three provinces. Convinced that the French were paralyzed by fear -- they had remained at their beachhead since landing -- the Algerians attacked with confidence. But the French had been waiting for all their troops and equipment to come ashore, not cowering. Brigades under generals Damremont and Monck d'Uzer formed infantry squares on the plateau. Marshal Bourmont, the expedition's commander-in-chief, arrived late to the battlefield, having initially dismissed the engagement's significance.

Under General Berthezene's advice, Bourmont ordered an advance on the Algerian positions. Three regiments under General Achard marched on an Algerian artillery battery; the gun crews fled as French troops fired through the embrasures. When Algerian cavalry massed on the French right flank to exploit a gap, General De la Hitte's concentrated artillery fire scattered them. What began as an organized Algerian retreat became a general rout as French columns charged into the camp. Algerian forces scattered in every direction, abandoning their belongings in panic. By one in the afternoon, the last Algerian soldiers had vanished from sight. The battle had lasted about eight hours. French casualties were modest: Berthezene's division lost 44 killed and 334 wounded; Loverdo's division 13 killed and 129 wounded.

The captured camp yielded vast quantities of weapons, food, livestock, and personal wealth abandoned in the hasty retreat. Yet despite this crushing victory, Bourmont refused to advance on Algiers until every last soldier and artillery piece had been brought ashore from the transport ships. This caution gave the Algerians time to recover. Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Regency, spent the next four days rallying the forces that had scattered after their defeat. Fighters who had fled returned to Algiers, and the French delay restored Algerian confidence. On June 24, Algerian forces returned to the Staoueli plateau for another confrontation at the Battle of Sidi Khalef. Staoueli was the opening act of a conquest that would take more than forty-five years to complete and would reshape the entire history of North Africa.