Chapter 6

GENERAL LYAUTEY'S WORK IN MOROCCO

I

It is not too much to say that General Lyautey has twice saved Morocco
from destruction: once in 1912, when the inertia and double-dealing of
Abd-el-Hafid abandoned the country to the rebellious tribes who had
attacked him in Fez, and the second time in August, 1914, when Germany
declared war on France.

In 1912, in consequence of the threatening attitude of the dissident
tribes and the generally disturbed condition of the country, the Sultan
Abd-el-Hafid had asked France to establish a protectorate in Morocco.
The agreement entered into, called the "Convention of Fez," stipulated
that a French Resident-General should be sent to Morocco with authority
to act as the Sultan's sole representative in treating with the other
powers. The convention was signed in March, 1912, and a few days
afterward an uprising more serious than any that had gone before took
place in Fez. This sudden outbreak was due in part to purely local and
native difficulties, in part to the intrinsic weakness of the French
situation. The French government had imagined that a native army
commanded by French officers could be counted on to support the Makhzen
and maintain order, but Abd-el-Hafid's growing unpopularity had
estranged his own people from him, and the army turned on the government
and on the French. On the 17th of April, 1912, the Moroccan soldiers
massacred their French officers after inflicting horrible tortures on
them, the population of Fez rose against the European civilians, and for
a fortnight the Oued Fez ran red with the blood of harmless French
colonists. It was then that France appointed General Lyautey
Resident-General in Morocco.

When he reached Fez it was besieged by twenty thousand Berbers. Rebel
tribes were flocking in to their support, to the cry of the Holy War,
and the terrified Sultan, who had already announced his intention of
resigning, warned the French troops who were trying to protect him that
unless they guaranteed to get him safely to Rabat he would turn his
influence against them. Two days afterward the Berbers attacked Fez and
broke in at two gates. The French drove them out and forced them back
twenty miles. The outskirts of the city were rapidly fortified, and a
few weeks later General Gouraud, attacking the rebels in the valley of
the Sebou, completely disengaged Fez.

The military danger overcome. General Lyautey began his great task of
civilian administration. His aim was to support and strengthen the
existing government, to reassure and pacify the distrustful and
antagonistic elements, and to assert French authority without irritating
or discouraging native ambitions.

Meanwhile a new Mahdi (Ahmed-el-Hiba) had