The Zaian (or Zayan) War was fought between France and the Zaian Confederation of Berber tribes in Morocco between 1914 and 1921 during the French conquest of Morocco. Morocco had become a French protectorate in 1912, and Resident-General Louis-Hubert Lyautey sought to extend French influence eastwards through the Middle Atlas mountains towards French Algeria. This was opposed by the Zaians, led by Mouha ou Hammou Zayani. The war began well for the French, who quickly took the key towns of Taza and Khénifra. Despite the loss of their base at Khénifra, the Zaians inflicted heavy losses on the French, who responded by establishing groupes mobiles, combined arms formations that mixed regular and irregular infantry, cavalry and artillery into a single force.
The outbreak of the First World War proved significant, with the withdrawal of troops for service in France compounded by the loss of more than 600 French killed at the Battle of El Herri. Lyautey reorganised his available forces into a "living barricade", consisting of outposts manned by his best troops protecting the perimeter of French territory with lower quality troops manning the rear-guard positions. Over the next four years the French retained most of their territory despite intelligence and financial support provided by the Central Powers to the Zaian Confederation and continual raids and skirmishes reducing scarce French manpower.
After the signing of the Armistice with Germany in November 1918, significant forces of tribesmen remained opposed to French rule. The French resumed their offensive in the Khénifra area in 1920, establishing a series of blockhouses to limit the Zaians' freedom of movement. They opened negotiations with Hammou's sons, persuading three of them, along with many of their followers, to submit to French rule. A split in the Zaian Confederation between those who supported submission and those still opposed led to infighting and the death of Hammou in Spring 1921. The French responded with a strong, three-pronged attack into the Middle Atlas that pacified the area. Some tribesmen, led by Moha ou Said, fled to the High Atlas and continued a guerrilla war against the French well into the 1930s.
Origins
The signing of the Treaty of Fez in 1912 established a French protectorate over Morocco. The treaty had been prompted by the Agadir Crisis of 1911, during which French and Spanish troops had been sent to Morocco to put down a rebellion against Sultan Abdelhafid. The new French protectorate was led by a resident-general, Louis-Hubert Lyautey, and adopted the traditional Moroccan way of governing through the tribal system. Upon taking up his post Lyautey replaced Abdelhafid with his brother, Yusef. The tribes took offence at this, installing their own Sultan, Ahmed al-Hiba, in Marrakesh and taking eight Europeans captive. Lyautey acted quickly against the revolt, dispatching General Charles Mangin and 5,000 troops to retake the town. Mangin's men were highly successful, rescuing the captives and inflicting heavy casualties on vastly superior numbers of tribesmen for the loss of 2 men killed and 23 wounded. Al-Hiba escaped to the Atlas mountains with a small number of his followers and opposed French rule until his death in 1919.
A popular idea among the public in France was to possess an unbroken stretch of territory from Tunis to the Atlantic Ocean, including expansion into the "Taza corridor" in the Moroccan interior. Lyautey was in favour of this and advocated French occupation of the Middle Atlas mountains near Taza, through peaceful means where possible. This French expansion into the Middle Atlas was strongly opposed by the "powerful Berber trinity" of Mouha ou Hammou Zayani, leader of the Zaian Confederation; Moha ou Said, leader of the Aït Ouirra; and Ali Amhaouch, a religious leader of the Darqawa variant of Islam prevalent in the region.
Hammou commanded between 4,000 and 4,200 tents of people and had led the Zaians since 1877, opposing the French since the start of their involvement in Morocco. An enemy of the French following their deposing of Sultan Abdelhafid, who was married to Hammou's daughter, he had declared a holy war against them and intensified his tribe's attacks on pro-French (or "submitted") tribes and military convoys. Said was an old man, who was held in good standing by tribesmen across the region and had formerly been a caïd (a local governor with almost absolute power) for the Moroccan government, even serving in the army of Sultan Abdelaziz against a pretender at Taza in 1902. Despite initially being open to negotiations with the French, pressure from pro-war chiefs and the fear of ridicule from his tribesmen had dissuaded him. Amhaouch was a strong and influential man, described by French officer and explorer René de Segonzac as one of the "great spiritual leaders of Morocco" and the "most powerful religious personality of the south east". The French had attempted to persuade the Zaians to submit since 1913 with little success; most tribes in the confederation remained opposed to French rule.
Lyautey's plans for taking Taza also extended to capturing Khénifra, Hammou's headquarters. He had been advised by his political officer, Maurice Le Glay that doing so would "finish him off definitively" and cut the Zaians off from support of other tribes. The French outpost at nearby Kasbah Tadla had recently been attacked by Said and subsequent peace negotiations led by Lyautey's head of intelligence, Colonel Henri Simon, had achieved little. As a result, Mangin was authorised to lead a retaliatory raid to Said's camp at El Ksiba but, despite inflicting heavy casualties, was forced to withdraw with the loss of 60 killed, 150 wounded and much equipment abandoned. Having failed to make any impression on the Zaians through negotiation in May 1914, Lyautey authorised General Paul Prosper Henrys to take command of all French troops in the area and launch an attack on Taza and Khénifra. Henrys captured Taza within a few days using units drawn from garrisons in Fez, Meknes, Rabat and Marrakesh and then turned his attention to Khénifra.
Khénifra campaign
Henrys planned his assault on Khénifra to begin on 10 June 1914 with the dispatch of three columns of troops, totalling 14,000 men equipped with wireless radios and supported by reconnaissance aircraft. One column was to set out from Meknes under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Henri Claudel, another from Rabat under Lieutenant-Colonel Gaston Cros and the third from Kasbah Tadla under Colonel Noël Garnier-Duplessix. Henrys took overall command, directing the forces from an armoured car within the Claudel column. Aware that he knew little of the terrain or the allegiance of local tribes Henrys offered a generous set of terms for tribesmen who submitted to French rule: they would have to surrender only their rapid firing rifles and any captured French supplies, and pay a small tax in return for protection. He also set aside substantial funds to bribe informants and tribal leaders.
Despite these measures, Claudel's column came under attack before it even left Meknes, although it was the largest and intended as a diversion. Hammou's forces attacked their camp on three separate nights, inflicting losses of at least one officer and four men killed and nineteen injured, but leaving the other two columns unopposed. Claudel launched a counterattack on 10 June while Hammou was preparing a fourth attack, sweeping the Zaians away with artillery and ensuring little resistance for his march to Khénifra on the next day. After enduring some sniping attacks in Teguet, Claudel's cavalry crossed the Oum er Rbia at el Bordj and advanced to the outskirts of Khénifra. The rest of the column joined them on 12 June, fighting off Zaian attacks on the way and meeting up with the other two columns, finding the town emptied of people and raising the French flag. The column had lost two men killed in the march.
The columns experienced repeated, strong attacks by Zaian tribesmen that day, repelled by late afternoon at the cost of five men killed and nineteen wounded. Further attacks on the nights of 14 and 15 June were repulsed by artillery and machine gun fire, directed by searchlights. Henrys then dispatched two columns south to the Zaian stronghold of Adersan to burn houses, proving his military abilities but not provoking a decisive confrontation with the tribes, who returned to guerrilla warfare tactics. In response all French-controlled markets were closed to the Zaians and their trade convoys were intercepted.
Henrys became aware of a Zaian presence at el Bordj and sent a column to attack them on 31 June. South of el Bordj the French came under heavy fire from tribesmen with modern rifles and resorted to bayonet charges to clear the way. The encounter was Henrys' first major engagement with the Zaians and his losses were high, 1 officer and 16 men killed and a further 2 officers and 75 men wounded. Zaian losses were much higher: the French counted at least 140 dead remaining on the battlefield, and considered the battle a victory. Henrys expected a pause in activity while the Zaians recovered, but instead Hammou stepped up attacks on the French. Just four days later an attack on a French convoy by 500 mounted tribesmen was only repulsed after several hours by more bayonet charges. French losses were again significant with one officer and ten men killed and thirty men wounded.
Groupes mobiles
In light of the increased attacks in the Khénifra area Henrys established three groupes mobiles, made up of troops mostly drawn from the Army of Africa. Each groupe was designed to be highly mobile and typically consisted of several battalions of regular infantry (Algerian and Senegalese Tirailleurs or French Foreign Legion troops), a squadron of cavalry (Algerian Spahis), a few batteries of artillery (field or mountain), a section of Hotchkiss machine guns and a mule train for supplies under the overall leadership of a French senior officer. In addition each groupe mobile would have one or two goums (informal groups of around 200 men) of goumiers, irregular tribal auxiliaries, under the leadership of a French intelligence officer. The goums were used for intelligence gathering operations and in areas of difficult terrain.
A four-battalion-strong groupe mobile was established at Khénifra, under Lieutenant-Colonel René Laverdure; one based to the west under Claudel and one to the east under Garnier-Duplessix. In addition fortified posts were established at M'Rirt and Sidi Lamine with the areas between patrolled by goumiers to protect convoys and submitted tribes from attack. Increasing attacks on Khénifra throughout July, repelled only by concentrated artillery and machine gun fire, left Henrys concerned that a combined force of tribesmen could threaten the town and the submitted tribes. This fear was partially allayed by the separate defeats of Hammou and Amhaouch by the groupes mobiles of Claudel and Garnier-Duplessix and by increasing numbers of auxiliaries becoming available from newly submitted tribes through the levy system.
Claudel and Garnier-Duplessix were ordered to patrol the French bank of the Oum er Rbia and attempt to separate the Zaians from the Chleuh to the south while Henrys planned for an advance through the Middle Atlas to the Guigou River. These operations were halted by the reduction in forces imposed on him by the outbreak of the First World War in Europe.
First World War
Lyautey received orders from Army headquarters in Paris on 28 July 1914 the day the First World War began, requesting the dispatch of all available troops to France in anticipation of a German invasion and the withdrawal of his remaining forces to more defensible coastal enclaves. The French government justified this stance by stating that the "fate of Morocco will be determined in Lorraine". Lyautey, who had lost most of his own possessions when his house in Crévic had been burnt to the ground by advancing German forces, was keen to support the defence of France and within a month had sent 37 infantry and cavalry battalions and six artillery batteries to the Western Front – more than had been requested of him. A further 35,000 Moroccan labourers were recruited by Lyautey over the course of the war for service in France.
Nevertheless, Lyautey did not wish to abandon the inland territory his men had fought so hard for, stating that if he withdrew "such a shock would result immediately all over Morocco ... that a general revolt would arise under our feet, on all our points". Left with just 20 battalions of legionnaires (mainly German and Austrian), military criminals of the Infanterie Légère d'Afrique, territorial reservists, Senegalese Tirailleurs and goumiers, he switched from the offensive to a long-term strategy of "active defence". Lyautey withdrew all non-essential personnel from his rear garrisons, brought in elderly reservists from France and issued weapons and elements of military dress to civilians in an attempt to convince the tribes that the French army in Morocco was as strong as before. Lyautey referred to this move as similar to hollowing out a lobster while leaving the shell intact. His plan depended on holding a "living barricade" of French outposts running from Taza in the north through Khenifra, Kasbah Tadla and Marrakesh to Agadir on the Atlantic coast.