Morocco

   One of the Barbary States of Northwest Africa, effectively independent since the Middle Ages but poor and territorially ill defined. Morocco supported the jihad of Adb el-Qadr against French dominion in Algeria, for which it suffered brutal retaliation in 1845. Morocco’s next clash with a European power came in 1859 in the form of invasion by Spain. Spain was not only geographically proximate to Morocco but also had been intermittently involved there going back to the fifteenth century. The invasion of 1859, however, was in response to Moroccan raids against outposts in northern Africa. A Spanish force captured the town of Tetuán in February 1860, and Morocco was forced to pay an indemnity and to cede more territory to Spain around the towns of Ceuta and Melilla.

   A second war followed in 1892. From 1863 onward, Morocco was of increasing interest to France. In 1904, an Anglo-French agreement gave France a free hand in Morocco in exchange for French acceptance of British supremacy in Egypt. Later the same year a secret agreement between France and Spain divided the country into spheres of influence. Thereafter, Morocco became the object of the Moroccan Crisis of 1905 and the Agadir Crisis of 1911, which brought Britain and France closer together and prefigured World War I.

   See also <>; <>; <>.

   FURTHER READING:

    Porch, Douglas. The Conquest of Morocco. New York: Knopf, 1982;

    Terrasse, Henri. History of Morocco. Translated by Hilary Tee. Casablanca: Éditions Atlantides, 1952.

   CARL CAVANAGH HODGE