The French conquest of Morocco began with the French Republic occupying the city of Oujda on 29 March 1907. The French launched campaigns against the Sultanate of Morocco which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Fes and establishment of the French Protectorate in Morocco on 30 March 1912. France later concluded, on 27 November, the Treaty of Madrid with the Kingdom of Spain which established the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. The French still conducted a series of military operations to pacify rebellions in Morocco until 1934.
Background
The French Empire considerably expanded their activities in the Sultanate of Morocco after the Battle of Isly (1844). French representatives in Tangier were no longer consuls but chargés d'affaires. The Treaty of Lalla Maghnia signed in March 1845 between France and Morocco recognized the boundary existing before 1830 between Algeria and Morocco as being still binding. The oasis of Figuig was recognized in the same treaty as being Moroccan and the oasis of Aïn Séfra as being Algerian. But the French refused to delineate the frontier to the south of Figuig on the ground that a frontier was superfluous in uninhabited desert land. The Paris Revolution of 1848 temporarily weakened French diplomacy. France's desire to reassert her influence in Morocco led to the Bombardment of Salé in November 1851. In 1859 French troops occupied the oasis of Sidi Yahia, a place seven kilometres from Oujda. In 1860 a French post office was founded in Tangier as a branch of the postal service of Oran. While providing a useful service to European and Moroccan merchants, the existence of the foreign post offices constituted an enlargement of the normal extraterritorial rights and an encroachment upon Moroccan Government functions.
From the 1850s, politicians in France and the authorities in Algeria started to advocate the creation of military posts in the southern parts of the region of Oran and beyond it for the purpose of controlling the trans-Saharan trade and eventually uniting the French colonies of Algeria and the Senegal. After the Hispano-Moroccan War (1859–1860), the Kingdom of Spain joined with the United Kingdom to oppose France, who from her position in Algeria seemed then to be the greatest threat to Morocco. Popular support in both France and in Algeria for a Saharan conquest came into being in 1875, after a French engineer, Duponchel, had suggested that the commerce of the Sahara and of central Africa might be opened up to French interests by the construction of a Trans-Saharan Railway. Initially, the idea was to put such a railroad through the Saharan region lying east of the Gourara-Touat-Tidikelt. Other than British and Spanish hostilities, France had to also contend with the Kingdom of Italy's hostility, as the Italians had been angered by the French military intervention in Tunisia in 1881. In 1881 France established a military post in Aïn Séfra. This act solidified French control over all of the ksour of the Saharan Atlas that had been given to Algeria by the Treaty of Lalla Maghnia. The next year, in 1882, the French Government requested from the Moroccans permission to construct the Trans-Saharan Railroad along the route leading from the Oued Zousfana to the Touat. The Moroccans, however, refused. Fearing that the French might nevertheless continue their advance towards the south, in 1883, the Moroccans placed an amel (a governor) at the oasis of Figuig, on the upper reaches of the Oued Zousfana. In 1885 French troops crossed the crest of the Saharan Atlas and began to construct a post at Djéniene Bourzeg, a water hole strategically situated in a mountain corridor that led directly to the valley of the Zousfana to the south of Figuig. Djéniene Bourzeg was in a disputable area; and while an initial Moroccan protest had first induced the French to withdraw, the Moroccans, in November 1886 agreed to recognize the locale as being in Algerian territory. Britain, Spain and Italy in 1887 had sent a note to Moulay Hassan, assuring him that they desired to see maintained both the independence and the territorial integrity of his country. By the 1890s, the predominant French interest was already directed towards the establishment of a French protectorate over Morocco; and it was feared that an overt action against the Saharan territories which Morocco claimed would antagonize not merely the Moroccans, but also the other European powers who had become equally involved in Moroccan affairs.
Prelude
South-Oranese Campaign (1899–1903)
After Théophile Delcassé became foreign minister in 1898, the French followed a more aggressive policy of penetration. In executing this policy they worked to prevent the reformation of the Moroccan Government under Moulay Abd al-Aziz while at the same time drawing it towards greater recognition of France's special interests in Morocco by continually raising problems connected with incidents on the frontier with Algeria. The actual intervention in the Gourara-Tuat-Tidikelt did not take place until the very end of 1899. The military contingent escorting the mission quickly routed the Saharans and took advantage of the opportunity to occupy the oasis of Aïn Salah. An armed conflict opposed French troops to the Aït Khabbash, a fraction of the Aït Ounbgui khams of the Aït Atta confederation. The conflict ended by the annexation of the Touat-Gourara-Tidikelt complex to Algeria by France in 1901. Attacks by the Beni Guil, Doui Menia, Oulad Djerir, Aït Atta, and by pillagers emanating from Figuig continued on the frontier throughout all of the latter part of 1902 and during much of the year 1903. It was not until April 1903 that Paris finally agreed that the Algerian military forces could make a "police action" west of the Zousfana line.
On 31 May 1903, the Governor-General of Algeria Charles Jonnart was making an inspection tour of the frontier area when he was shot at in the vicinity of Figuig. On June 8 Figuig was bombarded. Hubert Lyautey wished to establish and place military posts as far as possible towards the areas considered to be Moroccan. In October 1903, after further attacks had been perpetrated against the French troops stationed in the Zousfana, Paris agreed to the installation of a post west Béchar. Béchar had been one of the locales utilized most frequently as a refuge by the nomads who had attacked the Zousfana line.
French agreements on Morocco (1900–1904)
In 1900 the French agreed to recognize the predominance of Italy's interests in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in exchange for an Italian assurance that, as far as they were concerned, France might have a "free hand" in Morocco. Negotiations with Spain over Morocco failed in 1902 because of disagreement over the limits of the future Spanish zone and the insistence of the French on reserving to themselves the right of intervention in it. The Franco-British agreement reached on 8 April 1904 involved the recognition of the predominant position of France in Morocco in exchange for France's recognition of the permanency of Britain's position in Egypt. The Franco-British agreement also specified a zone to be entrusted to Spain when it became necessary for France to occupy Morocco, and subsequent British pressure on Spain to accept France's terms.
Tangier Crisis (1905–1906)
The German Empire's influence and commerce in Morocco expanded after concluding a commercial treaty with Sultan Moulay Hassan in 1890. The Germans tried to thwart the implementation of the Franco-British agreement on Morocco, more for reasons connected with the emerging system of alliance in Europe than for any specific political aims they had in Morocco itself. At the time of the negotiations between Spain and France in 1902 and 1904 the Germans encouraged Spain to insist on being allowed to police Tangier, whose future international character was a central issue already accepted by the French and the British. Since 1904 the German Empire directed its efforts towards the internationalization of the Moroccan question. With this intention Kaiser Wilhelm II made a visit to Tangier on 31 March 1905, and stated while there that he regarded Sultan Moulay Abd al-Aziz as an independent ruler, warned against hasty reforms (a reference to France's mandate in the 1904 agreement with Britain to ‘reform’ the Moroccan structure), and warned that Germany's interests in Morocco would be protected.
Britain, Belgium and France made defensive preparations — the French reinforced units, trained reservists and procured arms — to signal their determination. Germany only took similar limited steps late in the crisis. Despite these moves, neither side desired war. The French knew that they were weak and did not wish to provoke the Germans, and Delcassé, the foreign minister, who alone advocated firmness, was forced to resign from the cabinet. Bernhard von Bülow, the German chancellor, alive to the danger of escalation, had no intention of risking a European war over African concessions.
The Kaiser's visit was followed by the German demand that an international conference on Morocco be convened. The French, anxious to avoid conflict with Germany, and relying on the diplomatic support of Britain, Spain and Italy, agreed to the demand in July.
Algeciras Conference (1906)
The Moroccan conference, attended by the representatives of thirteen countries, was opened in Algeciras on 16 January 1906. Its objectives, as stated in the opening session by its president, the Duke of Almodóvar del Río Juan Manuel Sánchez, were to prepare a programme of reform for Morocco that would preserve the sultan's sovereignty and Morocco's territorial integrity, and maintain the policy of the open door in commercial activity. As the principal consideration in the minds of the delegates was the balance of power in Europe, it proved difficult to agree on the share that each of the powers represented was to have in carrying out the so-called reforms.
After nearly three months of diplomatic wrangling the powers adopted the Act of Algeciras on 7 April which provided for ‘reforms’ amounting to a joint Franco-Spanish control of Morocco's police and finances. The policing of the major Moroccan ports was entrusted to France and Spain, with the Spaniards in charge of Tétouan and Larache, the French of Safi, Rabat, El Jadida, and Essaouira, and both French and Spanish policemen in Casablanca and Tangier. A Swiss officer stationed in Tangier was to act as inspector of the foreign police forces and to report to the sultan and the diplomatic corps in Tangier. The Act also provided for the creation of a Moroccan state bank financed by the powers, with France controlling it by virtue of providing a third of the capital.
The close Anglo-French collaboration forced Berlin to accept a diplomatic defeat. This not only confirmed Berlin's isolation — only Austria-Hungary offered support — but more importantly France and Britain strengthened the Entente. The sultan, realizing that Britain had relinquished her role as protector of the Moroccan makhzen and seeing Germany unable to restrain France, accepted the Act of Algeciras. But the Moroccans were provoked by the increasing activities of Europeans in the country. In their attacks on Europeans, they provided France and Spain with the excuse for military intervention.
War against the sultanate
Occupation of Oujda (1907)
Following the assassination of the French physician Émile Mauchamp, a French physician suspected espionage and conspiring to lay the groundwork for French takeover of Morocco, in Marrakesh on 19 March 1907, French general Hubert Lyautey led soldiers across the border from French-occupied Algeria to occupy the important town of Oujda on March 29.