Lesson 28: French and Italian Colonialism in Tunisia, Morocco and Libya

01France's colonisation of Tunisia (1881)

Why French expansion was easy

• Seizing Algeria was part of a great French project to build a French empire in North Africa.
• Neither the Karamanli family in Tripoli nor the Beys of Tunisia had the capacity to confront French colonialism.
• The Ottoman state took negative positions towards the French colonisation of Algeria, until it saw that French greed was reaching beyond that, and so it worked to save Tunisia and Tripoli by restoring direct rule over both.
• The Sultan succeeded in 1835 in expelling the Karamanli family from Tripoli and governing the country directly, and in 1836 he sent naval warships to Tunisia.
• France objected, claiming that Tunisia had an independent entity in whose affairs the Sultan had no right to interfere — a step preparing the way for France to act alone in Tunisia.
• Nor was this easy for France, because Tunisia was also the target of other great powers — England and Italy — the latter having moved to build a colonial empire after the Italians achieved their unity (1859–1870).

The colonial competition over Tunisia

• Among the signs of the competition: the race of the three states to win agents inside the high Tunisian administration and to obtain as many investments as possible.
• The high administration was eager to cooperate with the great powers to modernise the country politically, economically, culturally and militarily.
• Bey Muhammad (1855–1859) issued the Covenant of Security (Ahd al-Aman), by which citizens became equal before the law, and Bey Muhammad al-Sadiq issued a constitution in 1861.
• In his time railway and telegraph lines and ports were carried out by French and English companies.
• Every time one foreign state won a concession from the Tunisian government, the other great powers got the same concession — so France, England and Italy obtained the right to own land in Tunisia.
• As happened in Egypt, Tunisia was pushed into the trap of foreign loans until it went bankrupt, at a time when international competition over colonising the Arab lands was rising.

The Congress of Berlin 1878 and France acting alone

• The international balance was upset when Russia defeated the Ottoman state in 1878 and imposed the treaty of San Stefano, which produced an oversized Bulgaria that was Russia's claw.
• The other great powers refused, and Europe stood on the brink of a major war; Bismarck, chancellor of the German Reich, invited the competing states to settle their problems at the table of the Congress of Berlin (1878) at the expense of "the Sick Man of Europe", the Ottoman state.
• During the congress Britain snatched Cyprus from the Ottoman state in exchange for a promise to defend it; France flew into a rage, and Britain concurred in letting France act alone in Tunisia.
• Italy, greedy for Tunisia, left angry and in 1882 joined the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary against France.
• The French harnessed Tunisia to French interests and even sought to distort its Arab-Islamic identity; but Tunisia was more capable of preserving its identity: it clung to the Islamic solidarity launched by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and adopted by Sultan Abdulhamid II, and national parties were formed to struggle and demand independence.

02The struggle of Tunisia until independence

• The leaders of the national movement tried to put the Tunisian case before the Peace Conference on the basis of the right of self-determination, and they met the same refusal to be heard that the Egyptian delegation met.
• Between the two wars the leadership of Habib Bourguiba was distinguished by combining Arab and French culture in mobilising the masses.
• France's defeat at the start of the Second World War weakened its position towards national movements; for that reason the arrest of the national leaders gathered in a national congress in 1946 caused a world uproar.
• The Tunisian question was put before the United Nations in 1952, and France, under pressure from the national struggle and from Arab and world support, was obliged to declare its agreement to the independence of Tunisia (March 1956) — but it kept the naval base of Bizerte, which it finally evacuated in 1963.

03The French protectorate on Morocco (Marrakesh), 1912

Historical background

• Since the beginning of the modern era Marrakesh had faced the European colonial states directly, especially Portugal and Spain.
• It fought the Battle of Wadi el-Makhazin (1578), where al-Mansur al-Saadi won a victory that saved North Africa; but Ceuta and Melilla remained under Spanish control.
• European civilisation knocked on Marrakesh's doors, and France imposed the treaty of privileges on the Sultan of Morocco in 1767; the other great powers did the same.
• When Marrakesh turned to modernisation, France offered experience, experts and the tools of modernisation — and exploited incidents on the Algerian-Moroccan border to impose its control over important areas inside Marrakeshi territory.

The colonial bargains

• France prepared the ground for the great powers to accept its acting alone in Marrakesh.
• With Italy (1902): France alone in Marrakesh in exchange for Italy alone in Libya (Tripoli–Cyrenaica).
• With England: the Entente Cordiale (1904). With Spain: it obtained the Rif region.
• The deals aroused Germany, which itself faced strong opposition from England and France in several places: England had made a treaty with the Al-Sabah family in Kuwait (1899) to stop the Ottoman state and Germany extending the Berlin–Baghdad railway to Kuwait.
• Kaiser Wilhelm II declared his opposition to the deals and his support for the independence of Marrakesh, and demanded an international congress. The Algeciras conference (1906) was held, and it showed that Britain stood firmly beside France while Austria's support for its ally Germany was not at the same level, so Germany found itself alone and isolated.
• France came out of the conference strengthened; its troops invaded the country in 1907; Sultan Abdelaziz was deposed in 1908 and Moulay Abdelhafid succeeded him.
• Germany sent a naval vessel to Agadir (1911), but met a firm stand by the two Entente powers, and contented itself with France ceding it a small piece of the French Congo.
• France declared the protectorate over Marrakesh in 1912; Spain consolidated its control over the Rif and the Spanish Sahara; and the great powers agreed to place Tangier under an international regime.
• England was against any single great power taking Tangier alone, to protect its Gibraltar colony — the key to the western Mediterranean.

04The struggle of the Moroccan people until independence

• In the Spanish Rif national resistance took the form of fierce military struggle led by Emir Muhammad Abdel Karim al-Khattabi (1922–1926); but France and Spain allied against him until he was defeated and surrendered, and from then on Spanish colonialism settled in the Rif.
• France worked to drive a wedge between Arabs and Berbers, just as England had tried to drive a wedge between Muslims and Copts in Egypt.
• The national forces (the National Action Block and the National Party) moved to press the French authorities, and the period before the Second World War saw major clashes between the nationalists and the colonial authorities.
• Among the factors that shook the French presence: Sultan Mohammed V's standing with the Allies in the Second World War and the rising national movement despite the Allies' abandoning him — especially after Allal al-Fasi moved to Cairo and joined the Committee for the Liberation of Arab Morocco.
• The rise of the movement drove the French to rashness: they deposed Mohammed V and exiled him (August 1953), so the resistance grew more active, demanding his return and the departure of the French.
• The French were disappointed in their attempt to divide Berbers from Arabs: the Berber leader "el-Jelawi" announced his adherence to the national movement and demanded the Sultan's return.
• The Sultan returned to his throne in 1955; France was obliged to cancel the protectorate in March 1956, Spain cancelled its protectorate over the Rif, and the international regime for Tangier was abolished — Moroccan independence was realised in 1956.
• All that remained in French hands were Mauritania and Djibouti: the first became independent in 1960 and the second in 1977.

05Italian colonialism in Libya (1911)

Why Italy turned towards Libya

• French expansion in North Africa — especially since the Congress of Berlin 1878 — alarmed the great powers, Italy above all. When France got ahead of it into Tunisia, Italy replied by joining, in 1882, the German-Austrian alliance directed against France.
• In 1887 a treaty bound Italy, Germany, Austria, Britain and Spain and was directed against any new French expansion in Libya or Marrakesh — so Italy concentrated its effort on Libya.
• Italy saw in Libya a temporary consolation preserving its international dignity: it was the uncolonised region left in North Africa overlooking Italy and it could be a spearhead for future expansions.
• It won the great powers' consent to its acting alone in Libya: the agreement of Britain and Spain; a deal with Russia not to oppose Russia's control of the Turkish Straits; and the 1902 deal with France over Marrakesh.
• Italy penetrated economically and founded the Bank of Rome, and Catholic missionary activity and Italian schools grew; so when it found an opportunity to declare war on the Ottoman state in 1911 it already held many projects.

Why Turkey failed to defend Libya

• Italy sent the Ottomans an ultimatum in September 1911 and landed its troops, and soon consolidated itself on the coast against weak Ottoman resistance.
• The Ottoman government had withdrawn part of its forces in Libya and sent them to Yemen to fight its imam.
• The British refused to allow Ottoman forces to cross through Egypt to Libya.
• Sending forces by sea was difficult, because the Italian fleet besieged Tripoli and pressed on the Dodecanese islands.
• Italian superiority at sea and on land helped bring down the coastal towns (Tripoli, Derna and Benghazi); the Arab tribes resisted the invaders but could not hold out financially or militarily.

06The independence of Libya

• The Italian invasion put most of the coast under direct control, while the Senusi order enjoyed strong influence in the interior, especially in Cyrenaica.
• After the Ottoman state entered the First World War the national movement rose, until the Arabs of Libya pledged allegiance to Muhammad Idris el-Senusi as amir of Cyrenaica and Tripoli (1922).
• This coincided with the rise of Fascism under Mussolini, who declared he was reviving the Roman Empire and that the Mediterranean was an Italian sea, and who launched attacks with every weapon against the resistance led by Omar Mukhtar.
• Massacres, trials, death sentences and the terror of the commander Graziani, together with overwhelming military superiority and the great powers' attempts to win Italy's friendship, led to the defeat of the resistance and to Omar Mukhtar being taken prisoner; the Italians publicly executed him in 1931 before his own people.
• After Ethiopia fell to Italy (1935/1936), Italy in Libya, Eritrea and Somalia became a menace hanging over the Nile Valley, and it used Libya as a base for invading Egypt in the Second World War.
• The defeat of the Axis powers liberated Libya from Italy, and Egypt's firm stand beside the Libyan national movement led to keeping the British and the French out of Libya, preventing its being split into several parts, and Libya's independence in 1951.

07Exam traps and key takeaways

• Local weakness was only half the story: the Ottoman reply was to expel the Karamanlis from Tripoli (1835) and send warships to Tunisia (1836) — France blocked it by claiming Tunisia was already independent of the Sultan.
• Tunisian reform dates: Ahd al-Aman under Bey Muhammad (1855–1859), constitution under Muhammad al-Sadiq (1861) — do not swap the two beys.
• The trigger of France's lone hand was international: San Stefano 1878 → Congress of Berlin 1878 → Britain takes Cyprus → Britain lets France take Tunisia → Italy's revenge is the 1882 alliance with Germany and Austria.
• Italian unity is dated 1859–1870; Bizerte evacuated 1963, Tunisian independence March 1956, UN step 1952, arrest of leaders 1946.
• Morocco's early strength: Wadi el-Makhazin 1578, al-Mansur al-Saadi — yet Ceuta and Melilla stayed Spanish; privileges treaty with France 1767.
• The bargain chain: Italy 1902 (Libya for Morocco) · Britain Entente Cordiale 1904 · Spain gets the Rif. Germany's protest produced Algeciras 1906, where Austria failed Germany; invasion 1907; Abdelaziz deposed 1908; Agadir 1911 → small Congo concession; protectorate 1912; Tangier international because of Gibraltar.
• Moroccan resistance: Abdel Karim al-Khattabi 1922–1926 was in the Spanish Rif, fought by a French–Spanish alliance.
• France's failed wedge was Arabs vs Berbers (compare Britain's Muslims vs Copts in Egypt) — and the Berber leader el-Jelawi joined the national movement. Independence sequence: Mohammed V exiled August 1953 → restored 1955 → French protectorate cancelled March 1956 → Morocco independent 1956; Mauritania 1960, Djibouti 1977.
• Libya: Italy's 1887 treaty included Italy, Germany, Austria, Britain and Spain; it aimed at any new French expansion in Libya or Morocco. Italy's consent package: Britain and Spain, Russia (Straits), France (1902); economic penetration = Bank of Rome, Catholic missions, Italian schools.
• Four reasons Ottoman defence failed: troops diverted to Yemen · Britain barred the overland route through Egypt · the Italian fleet invested Tripoli and pressed the Dodecanese · Italian superiority at sea and on land. The coastal towns that fell: Tripoli, Derna, Benghazi.
• Libyan dates: Idris el-Senusi acclaimed 1922 · Omar Mukhtar executed 1931 · Ethiopia falls 1935/1936 · independence 1951. Egypt's role: kept Britain and France out and prevented the partition of Libya.