Page images
PDF
EPUB

an.

he

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors][merged small]

that the protectorate would have been established in Morocco many years sooner, if on the one hand the French diplomatic agents had succeeded in imposing their views on the civil and military administration of Algeria, and if on the other hand certain influences had not been exercised to place obstacles in the path.

There is here no intention to incriminate one side or the other. The maintenance of the status quo in Morocco brought profit to no one. The country continued to be unproductive and remained in a state of anarchy that brought France into perpetual difficulties on the Oran frontiers. Insurrections and raids necessitated the presence of large military forces, and revolt might at any moment spread to the other Mahommedan countries.

It is an undeniable fact that successive French Cabinets since the war of 1870 have displayed a certain timidity in their African policy, so far as it affected the other European nations. They have not adequately supported the men who formed definite ideas and drew up plans for their practical realization. The African policy of the Third Republic has certainly not been so incoherent as that of the Second Empire, nor so feeble and ineffectual as that of the July Monarchy. But the Third Republic came into a cumbrous heritage, surcharged in addition with the memory of the defeat suffered in the Franco-Prussian War. In spite of this, it is the Third Republic that has witnessed the formation of a colonial party and the realisation of Jules Ferry's programme.

When the French entered Tunisia, their arrival was not unexpected. Relations had been established with Tunisia during the whole period of France's penetration and gradual pacification of Algeria. Early in the 'eighties, for various causes, ruin threatened the Tunisian Regency. The people, starving and crushed by taxes, revolted and created a danger to their neighbours. The raising of loans necessitated the organization of a European financial commission and, after much temporising and hesitation, France decided to exercise the rights accorded to her by the Berlin Congress. The Algerian tribes suffered incessant raiding at the hands of the Kroumirian tribes, and the authority of the Bey was powerless to check the raiders. A campaign of three weeks was sufficient to bring the Kroumirs to reason, and the Bey signed the Treaty of Bardo, accepting the establishment of the French protectorate in Tunisia.

VOL. 243. NO. 495.

G

In so doing, the Bey was well aware that he would lose nothing. He had been kept well informed of the work accomplished by the French in Algeria, and from France he hoped for the restoration of order, material prosperity and financial security. He had moreover absolute confidence in the word of the government of the French Republic, which made "the engagement to lend constant support to His Highness the Bey of Tunis against every danger that might menace the person or the dynasty of His Higness or compromise the tranquillity of his States."

This engagement (Article 3 of the Treaty of Bardo) is dated June 8, 1883 that is to say, fifty-three years after the taking of Algiers, ten years before the establishment of the French rule in the southern territories and the occupation of the oases of the Sahara, and nearly twenty years before the occupation of Touat. The French protectorate of the Regency may therefore on the whole be regarded as a mere chapter in the history of the pacific intervention of France in North Africa.

The "Convention" which followed the Treaty of Bardo was signed by M. Paul Cambon, who twenty years later was to elaborate the Entente Cordiale in London. It was the changing-point of events. Algerian troops occupied Tunis, but Algeria did not absorb the Regency. M. Cambon, henceforth charged with the destinies of the country to which France was to extend her protection, gave instant proof of those admirable qualities which made of him one of the greatest public servants of his fatherland. From the very first he avoided those grave mistakes that had so long retarded the French penetration of Algeria. Tunis was not chained to Paris; the administration was not based on that of a French department; the Sovereign did not quit his throne but continued to exercise his prerogatives in collaboration with the Resident-General. The protectorate was attached to the Foreign Office, and not to the Home Office, like Algeria. All reorganization is effected in the name of the Bey and based on the original native organization. The French administration works collaterally with, and does not dominate, this native organization, which however it improves and extends to meet the new conditions and the constantly developing activity of the country. The legislature takes account of local circumstances and native customs. It is careful not to submit the native to regulations at which he would kick. His habits and creeds are scrupulously respected.

In short, the long experience acquired in Algeria is utilised for the valuable lessons it teaches.

There is no beating about the bush, for the aims are perfectly clear. Paris has no longer a direct control. The work of organization and administration is uninterrupted. Order reigns ; means of transport are multiplied; railways and ports are constructed by authorised private companies. As for the mines, the fatal errors that so long paralysed Algeria are avoided. The legislature has adopted American and Australian laws in their entirety, and profits by the experiments tried in the new countries in the nineteenth century. The foreign trade of Tunisia for 1924 gives the figure of a milliard and a-half francs-139 millions of francs more than the total of the previous year.

When we turn to Morocco, we see that the same happy results have marked the French protectorate. To bring the Cherifian empire economically into step with the other nations, it was necessary first of all to redeem it from anarchy. There was not to be found in Morocco, as in Tunisia, a sovereign whose authority though weakened was undisputed, nor an administration that, though out of joint, was still a coherent structure. The Sultan of Morocco is a spiritual and temporal sovereign; but the majority of the population is Berberian and only in a relative degree penetrated by Mahommedanism. The country at this day is still divided into the " Bled Makhzen " and the " Bled Siba," the one submitted to the Sultan, the other denying his authority. The Bled Siba," which in 1840 extended over five-sixths of the land, occupied at least two-thirds at the moment when the French protectorate was established. It was necessary to employ force to make the sovereign's authority respected, but recourse was had to arms only when it was absolutely necessary.

Marshal Lyautey who, in Algeria and Tunisia, had had long and profound experience of the Mussulman populations, both Arab and Berber, used every effort to bring the Moroccans under French influence by a method that he called " pacific penetration." His troops were composed of natives, Algerians and Tunisians for the most part, who, proud of what they had acquired by contact with Europeans, treated disdainfully as savages the brave but undisciplined and cruel insurgents against whom they were fighting. The French troops engaged in Morocco were always extremely few. When the Great War broke out, the protectorate

had been established for not more than two years. During the Great War, the contingents of the active army were recalled to fight in France, and Marshal Lyautey had under his orders only a reduced number of territorial reserve battalions. But order was not disturbed; the work of organization was continued on a firm basis; and now, in 1925, the Makhzen exercises its authority over three-quarters of the surface of the Cherifian Empire.

After serious initial reverses, the Rif insurrection has been mastered and Abd el Krim has been driven back to the boundaries of the Spanish zone, from whence he set forth with the confident design of supplanting the Sultan and crushing the French protectorate. The repression of this revolt against the sovereign authority of the Makhzen demanded of France a considerable effort. The Sultan trusted to the loyalty of the French and, in return for the military aid he received, he gave the French authority the moral support of his religious supremacy. He went to the headquarters at Fez and there celebrated the great annual festival, the Aïd el Kebir, in the course of which the Caïds and leading men of the tribes came to do him homage. There were gorgeous ceremonies, indescribably picturesque. Subsequently several Cherifian mehallas were organized and took an active part in the operations against the rebels of the Rif. On this occasion, the Sultan, as commander of the Faithful of Mogreb, issued an appeal to the tribes, which was read in all the mosques, even of Algeria and Tunisia. Events have proved that this appeal was more enthusiastically responded to than Abd el Krim's proclamation of a Holy War.

In changing residence, it was in motor-cars that Moulay Youssef and his suite covered the distance between Rabat and Fez. His last stay in the ancient northern capital dated many years back. The Sultan was therefore in a position to realise how much the country had been transformed in the interval. In old days the journey would have been made on horseback and would have taken many days. Tracks without bridges would have been followed, and a strong armed escort would have been necessary to repel the always possible attacks of insurgents. But now the Sultan, on passing the gates of Rabat, had a long viaduct before him traversing the wide and deep valley of Oued Bou Regreg, the lower end of which is protected by jetties giving passage to the port that is in course of construction.

A second viaduct has been made for the broad gauge railway that for some months now has connected Casablanca with Fez and Ouezzan. After the viaduct, a wide and solid road traverses the cork-oak forest of Mamora, in which there is a narrow gauge railway for the transport of cork and grain harvests; for, beyond the forest, the Bled-once a desert-is now cultivated by powerful motor ploughs and yields abundant crops. Further on, the road rejoins the broad gauge line, already spaced out by the pylons of the electric cable; for the great steam locomotives will give place to electric motors as soon as the power-stations worked by the Oueds of Mid-Atlas are ready to function.

On every side, pictures of peace and industry, security and prosperity, met the Sultan's gaze. None of his thoughts were to be read on his impassive face, but the comparison which he could not fail to draw was certainly all in favour of the protectorate. In ten years his empire has undergone an incredible transformation. Rising from a state of anarchy, violence and misery, unchanged for the last thousand years, it has taken a rank of its own among the nations of to-day, and the marvellous rapidity of its development allows of the prediction that, while keeping their racial and religious characteristics, the Moroccan people will speedily adapt themselves to the conditions of modern civilisation. Did the meditations of the Sultan lead him to this conclusion? And what may have been his thoughts, when looking to the left, he saw the sunset sky aflame over the crests of the mountains in the direction of the Rif?

HENRY D. DAVRAY

« PreviousContinue »