CHAPTER VI
THE HOLY WAR
When the Shawia tribesmen made their first attacks upon the French at Casablanca they were thoroughly confident of their own prowess and of the protection of Allah. They had often, before the coming of the French, called the attention of Europeans to the fact that salutes of foreign men-of-war entering port were not nearly so loud as the replies from their own antiquated guns—always charged with a double load of powder for the sake of making noise. But they have come to realise now that Christian ships and Christian armies have bigger guns than those with which they salute, and the news that Allah, whatever may be His reason, is not on the side of the noisy guns has spread over a good part of Morocco.
The Arabs now seldom try close quarters with the French, except when surrounded or when the French force is very small and they are numerous; and as I have indicated before, their defence is most ineffective. One morning on a march towards Mediuna I sat for an hour with the Algerians, under the war balloon, watching quietly an absurd attack of the tribesmen. From the crest of a hill, behind which they were lodged, they would ride down furiously to within half a mile of us, and turning to go back at the same mad pace, discharge a gun, without taking aim, at the balloon, their special irritation. It was all picturesque, but like the gallant charge of the brave Bulgarian in ‘Arms and the Man,’ entirely ridiculous. If the Algerians had been firing at the time, not one of them would have got back over their hill.
ARAB PRISONERS WITH A WHITE FLAG.
A COLUMN OF THE FOREIGN LEGION.
The reports in the London papers of serious resistance on the part of the Moors are seldom borne out by facts. Most of the despatches, passing through excitable Paris, begin with startling adjectives and end with ‘Six men wounded.’ Here, for instance, are the first and the last paragraphs of the Paris despatch describing the first taking of Settat, which is over forty miles inland and among the homes of the Shawia tribesmen. It is headed:
‘A Sixteen-Hour Fight.
‘At eight a.m. yesterday the French columns opened battle in the Settat Pass. The enemy offered a stubborn resistance, but was finally repulsed, after a fight lasting until midnight. Settat was occupied and Muley Rechid’s camp destroyed.