The French protectorate on Morocco (Marrakesh), 1912

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.