The Last Frontier: The White Man's War for Civilisation in Africa

by E. Alexander Powell

Personally, I am a firm believer in the future of Morocco and the Moors under the guidance and protection of France. I have seen too much of what France has accomplished in far less favoured regions, and under far more discouraging conditions, to think otherwise. Nothing illustrates the latent possibilities of the Moorish character better than an experiment which was made some years ago. At the request of the Sultan, the British minister to Morocco asked his government for permission to send a body of Moors to Gibraltar for the purpose of being instructed in British drill and discipline. The War Office acceding to the request, two hundred Moors, selected at random from various tribes throughout the empire, were sent to Gibraltar and remained there for three years, the men being occasionally changed as they acquired a knowledge of drill. They had good clothing given them, slept in tents, and were allowed by the Sultan a shilling a day, receiving precisely the same treatment as British soldiers. During the three years they were stationed on the Rock, there were only two cases in the police court against them for dissolute conduct or disorder. The soldiers of what civilised nation could have made such a record? Colonel Cameron, under whose superintendence they were placed, reported that they learned the drill as quickly and as well as any Englishmen, and that they were sober, steady, and attentive to their duties. (The Moors, it should be remarked, are noted for their abstemiousness, the precepts of the Koran which forbid the use of spirits and tobacco being rigidly observed.) This tends to show that Moors, living under a just and humane government, and having, as these men had, proper provision made for their livelihood, are not a lawless or even a disorderly people, and that they are capable of being transformed, under such a form of government as France has established in Algeria and Tunisia, into the splendid warriors which their ancestors were in Spain. It was, as I think I have remarked in the preceding chapter, the knowledge that France, in acquiring Morocco, would obtain the material for a formidable addition to her military forces which was, it is generally believed, one of the motives that inspired Germany's persistent opposition to a French protectorate.

Though the reins of Moorish power are already firmly in the hands of the French Resident-General at Fez, there is no reason to believe that the French expect, for the present at least, to depose the Sultan, it being to their interests, for obvious reasons, to maintain the pleasant fiction that Morocco is still an independent empire to which they have disinterestedly lent their protection, In August, 1912, Sultan Mulai-abd-el-Hafid, appreciating the emptiness of his title under the French régime, abdicated in favour of his brother, Mulai Youssef, who is known to be friendly to France. The new Sultan, who is the seventeenth of the dynasty of the Alides and the thirty-seventh lineal descendant of Ali, uncle and son-in-law of the Prophet, is known to his subjects as Emir-el-Mumenin, or Prince of True Believers, and as such he exercises a spiritual influence over his subjects which the French are far too shrewd to disregard. The position of the Sultan of Morocco has, indeed, become strikingly similar to that of his fellow-ruler in the other corner of Africa, the Khedive of Egypt, for, like him, he must needs content himself henceforth with the shadow of power. Even if the imperial form of government is permanently maintained (and this I very much doubt, for it is characteristic of the Latin races—as Taine puts it—that they always want to occupy a “sharply defined and terminologically defensible position”), its real ruler will be the Resident-General of France, whose policies will be carried out by French advisers in every department of the government and whose orders will be backed up by French bayonets. So long as Mulai Youssef is content meekly to play the part of a puppet, with French officials pulling the strings, he will be permitted to enjoy all the honours and comforts of royalty, but let him once give ear to sedition, let him make the slightest attempt to undermine the authority of the French régime, and he will find himself occupying a sentry-guarded villa in Algiers near the residences of the ex-Queen of Madagascar and the ex-King of Annam, those other Oriental rulers who thought to match themselves against the power of France.

The Sherifian umbrella, which is the Moorish equivalent of a crown, is hereditary in the family of the Filali Sherifs of Tafilelt. Each Sultan is supposed, prior to his death, to indicate the member of the imperial family who, according to his conscientious belief, will best replace him. This succession is, however, elective, and all members of the Sherifian family are eligible. It has generally happened that the late Sultan's nominee has been elected by public acclamation at noonday prayers the Friday after the Sultan's death, as the nominee generally has obtained possession of the imperial treasure and is supported by the body-guard, from whose ranks most of the court officials are appointed. I might add that all of the Moorish Sultans in recent years have been so extremely bad that no successor whom they could appoint, or who could appoint himself, could by any possibility be worse. The present Sultan knows scarcely half a dozen places in his whole empire, and has spent most of his life in two of them—Marrakesh and Fez—having held, up to the time of his accession to the throne, the important post of Khalif of the latter city. The Moors never pray for their sovereign to journey among them, for, so disturbed has been the condition of the country for many years past, and so numerous have been the pretenders to the Sherifian throne, that recent Sultans have rarely ventured outside the walls of their capitals with less than thirty thousand followers behind them, so that when they had occasion to pass through the territory of a hostile tribe, as not infrequently happened, they fought their way through, leaving ruin and desolation behind them. Though both Mulai Youssef and his predecessors have always resided at one or the other of the two official capitals, the coast city of Tangier has heretofore been the real capital of Morocco. Here lived the diplomatic and consular representatives of the foreign powers and, with a cynical disregard for the Moorish Government and people, ran things between them. Though considerations of safety doubtless entered into the matter, the chief reason for making Tangier the diplomatic capital was the extreme inconvenience to the foreign legations of being obliged to follow the court in its periodical migrations from one capital to the other. Therefore the diplomatic folk remained comfortably in Tangier—which, incidentally, can readily be overawed by a war-ship's guns—and the Sultan appointed ministers to treat with them there and thus carry on the foreign business of the state. When questions of great importance had to be negotiated special missions were sent to the capital at which the Sultan happened to be residing, the departure of these ambassadorial caravans, with their secretaries, attachés, kavasses, servants, and body-guards, not to mention the immense train of pack-mules and baggage camels, providing a spectacle quite as picturesque and entertaining as any circus procession. That feature of Moorish life disappeared with the coming of the French, however, for the foreign ministers will doubtless shortly be withdrawn; and hereafter, when any negotiations are to be conducted anent Morocco, instead of a diplomatic mission having to make a two-hundred-mile journey on horses or camels, the ambassador at Paris of the power in question will step into his motor-car and whirl over to the Ministry of the Colonies in the Rue Oudinot.

I know of nothing which gives so graphic an idea of the amazing conditions which have heretofore prevailed in Morocco, and to which the French are, thank Heaven, putting an end, as the speech which a former British minister, Sir John Drummond Hay, made some years ago to the reigning Sultan, and which was, probably, the most extraordinary address ever made by a diplomatic representative to a foreign ruler.

“Your Majesty has been so gracious as to ask me,” said Sir John, looking the despot squarely in the eye, “to express frankly my opinion of affairs in Morocco. The administration of the government in Morocco is the worst in the world. The government is like a community of fishes; the giant fish feed upon those that are small, the smaller upon the least, and these again feed upon the worms. In like manner the vizier and other dignitaries of the court, who receive no salaries, depend for their livelihood upon peculation, trickery, corruption, and the money they extract from the governors of provinces. The governors are likewise enriched through peculation from tithes and taxes, and extortion from sheikhs, wealthy farmers, and traders. A Moor who becomes rich is treated as a criminal. Neither life nor property is secure. Sheikhs and other subordinate officials subsist on what they can extort from the farmers and the peasantry. Then again, even the jailers are not paid; they gain their livelihood by taking money from prisoners, who, when they are paupers, are taught to make baskets, which are sold by the jailers for their own benefit. How can a country, how can a people, prosper under such a government? The tribes are in a constant state of rebellion against their governors. When the Sultan resides in his northern capital of Fez, the southern tribes rebel, and when he marches south to the city of Morocco, eating up the rebels and confiscating their property, the northern tribes rebel. The armies of the Sultan, like locusts, are constantly on the move, ravaging the country to quell the revolts. Agriculture is destroyed, the farmers and peasantry only grow sufficient grain for their own requirements, and rich lands are allowed to lie fallow because the farmers know the crops would be plundered by the governors and sheikhs. Thus it happens with cattle and horses. Breeding is checked, since the man who may become rich through his industry is treated as a criminal and all his possessions are taken from him, as in the fable the goose is killed to get the golden eggs.”

France, in pursuing her Moroccan adventure, will do well to bear in mind two danger-spots: the Riff and the Sus. Unless she treads carefully in the first she is likely to become embroiled in a quarrel with Spain; with the natives of the Sus she will probably have trouble whether she treads lightly or not. Sooner or later France is bound to come into collision with Spain, for, with Morocco avowedly a French protectorate, I fail to see how she can tolerate Spanish soldiers on its soil. Spain, basing her pretensions on her expulsion of the Moors from Granada in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, has always considered herself one of the heirs of Morocco. In fact, a secret treaty was signed between France and Spain in 1905 which distinctly defined the respective spheres of influence of the two powers in that country. By the terms of this treaty Spain was acknowledged to have predominating interests in those regions adjacent to the ports of Ceuta, Melilla, and El Araish, as well as in the Riff, a little-known and exceedingly mountainous district, believed to be rich in minerals, which lies in the northwestern corner of the empire, two days' journey eastward from Tetuan. Spain distinctly engaged not to take any action in the zone thus allotted to her other than to proceed with its commercial exploitation, but it was stipulated that, should the weakness of the Sherifian government make the maintenance of the status quo impossible, she should have a free hand in her sphere.

France, meanwhile, steadily continued her “pacific penetration” of Morocco, pushing her Algerian railways closer and closer to Morocco's eastern frontier, mobilising troops at strategic points, and overrunning the Sultan's dominions with “scientific” expeditions and secret agents. Spain soon began to regard with envy and impatience the subtle game which the French were so successfully playing, but it was not until 1910 that she found the opportunity and the excuse for which she had been eagerly waiting. Some Spanish labourers, who were working on a railway which was being laid from Melilla to some mines a few miles distant, were attacked by Riffian tribesmen and a number of the Spaniards were killed. Spain jumped at the opportunity which this incident afforded as a hungry trout jumps at a fly, and a few days later a Spanish army was being disembarked on Moroccan soil. A sharp campaign ensued which ended in the temporary subjugation of the Riffians and the occupation by Spain of a considerable tract of territory extending from Ceuta eastward to Cabo del Agua and southward as far as Seluan, thus comprising practically all of Morocco's Mediterranean seaboard. A Moorish envoy was sent to Madrid and, after protracted negotiations, a convention was signed which permitted Spain to establish a force of Moorish gendarmerie, under Spanish officers, at Melilla, Aljucemas, and Ceuta, for the maintenance of order in the districts near those places. Until this force has shown itself capable of maintaining order, the Spaniards assert that they will remain in occupation of the territory they now hold. Emboldened by her success in this adventure, and greedy for further expansion, Spain, in June, 1911, sent a vessel to El Araish (Laraiche) on the Atlantic coast, and a column was despatched from there to Alcázar, which lies some twenty miles inland. The region was apparently perfectly calm at the time, and the reasons given by Spain for her action—that mysterious horsemen had been seen upon the walls of Alcázar—appeared, in France at least, to be mere pretensions and raised a storm of indignation. As things now stand, France has proclaimed a definite protectorate over the whole of Morocco, an arrangement to which the Sultan has consented. Despite that proclamation, however, Spain continues to occupy a rich and extensive district of the country with an army of forty thousand men. By what means France will attempt to oust her—for oust her she certainly will—is an interesting subject for speculation and one which is giving both French and Spanish diplomats many sleepless nights.

A word, in passing, upon the region known as the Riff. It is more discussed and less known than any other quarter of Morocco. Nothing has been written upon it except from hearsay and no European has penetrated across its length and breadth, and this although it is but two days' ride on horseback from Tetuan. Situated in the very heart of the Great Atlas range, and accessible only through narrow passes and over rough mountain trails, this region has, from time beyond reckoning, been the home and the refuge of that savage and mysterious clan known as the Riffs. Their feudal chieftains live in great castles built of stone and lead much the same lives as did the European nobles of the Middle Ages. The passes giving access to the Riff are commanded by hilltop forts impregnable to anything short of modern artillery—and to get within range of them the artillery would need to have wings. They are a people rich in possibilities, are these Riffs, and one whom it is wiser to conciliate than to fight, as France will doubtless sooner or later learn. Brigands by nature, farmers in a small way by occupation, disciples of the vendetta, scorners of the law, suspicious of strangers, their only courts the gun and dagger, the Riffs have more in common with the mountaineers of the Blue Ridge than any people that I know. They have nothing in common with the other inhabitants of Morocco except their dress, wearing the universal brown hooded jellab and over it the toga-like white woollen haik, a skull-cap of red or brown, a belt with pouches of gaily coloured leather, and in it, always, a muzzle-loading pistol and the vicious curved knife, while over the shoulder slants the ten-foot-long Riff rifle, coral-studded, brass-bound, ivory-butted, and almost as dangerous to the man behind it as to the one in front. The Riffs are fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and quite frequently red-haired, and claim to be descended from the Romans, which is no unreasonable assumption on their part, as the Romans were adventuring in Morocco—they called it Mauritania—long before Cæsar's day.