Digitizing the Qarawiyyin Library

The political news both here and in the Middle East is depressing, so I will post something hopeful: the Library of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, described in the article as the oldest library in the world, is having its great collection digitized.

The story contains an Al Jazeera video which I have not been able to embed successfully, so you should watch it at the link. I'm not sure it's the world's oldest library, but among its many treasures is a manuscript of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima said to be written in his own hand, What historian could resist that?

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of wandering the Medina of the old city of Fez, or Fas al-Bali, you must try to get there, as it is one of the best preserved Arab cities, with many of its industries, particularly its famous tanneries producing Moroccan leather. (Those with sensitive noses might not want to tour the tanneries, though.) For centuries, Fez was Morocco's capital.

The city was founded in 789 AD by Idris I on the west bank of the Jawhar River; in 808 his son and successor Idris II founded a rival town on the east bank; they eventually merged. In the ninth centuries two groups of Arab immigrants arrived in Fez. One set, from Muslim Spain (al-Andalus), settled on the west bank, while the other group, from Kairouan (Qayrawan) in Tunisia, settled on the east bank. The two banks came to be known by the names of the two great Friday mosques, that of the Andalusians (al-Andalusiyyin) and that of those from Kairouan (al-Qarawiyyin). The mosque of Al-Qarawiyyin became a university mosque, still functioning. For the rest of the story, see the link above.

Judeo-Arabic Dialects in Morocco and Algeria

I'm a little late with this link from November but it tracks well with our own ongoing discussion of Arabic colloquials versus fusha: Lameen Souag over at Jabal al-Lughat writes about "Religion and dialect geography in Morocco and Algeria," about the differences between so-called Judeo-Arabics in those two countries and the adjacent Muslim Arabics. There's more on Morocco than on Lameen's native Algeria but it should interest anyone with an interest in dialect generally and darja/darija in particular. A useful look in fact at how community (religious in this case) may affect dialect more than geography or class.

Fatema Mernissi, 1940-2015

Fatema Mernissi, renowned sociologist, memoirist, and feminist icon, author of Beyond the Veil and dozrns of of other books dealing with the role of women in Islam, has died at the age of 75 in Rabat

The Moroccan scholar, educated at te Sorbonne and Brandeis, spent most of her career teaching at Mohammed V University in Morocco. Her body of work is likely to remain a mainstay of reading lists on the role of women in Islam for years to come.

Forty Years Since the Green March

The Green March, 1975. Portrait is King Hasan II

On November 6, 1975, with Francisco Franco on his deathbed, thousands of Moroccan civilians and units of the Moroccan Army gathered at Tarfaya in southern Morocco and prepared to cross into the Spanish colony of Spanish Sahara. The "Green March" was not resisted by Spain, but led to a war between Morocco and the POLISARIO Front (and for the first few years, Mauritania, allied with Morocco).

The war ended with a ceasefire in 1991 and an agreement to hold a referendum on Independence, Moroccan rule, or autonomy. Twenty-four years later the issue remains unresolved, and Morocco controls the bulk of the territory behind a defensive berm, while POLISARIO controls the eastern desert area, which has access to neither the phosphates nor the fisheries in the Moroccan zone. What in 1975 seemed to be the decolonization of one of Europe's last African colonies remains incomplete, with some Sahrawis seeing Spanish colonial rule as merely supplanted by Moroccan (though the Moroccan-occupied areas do vote in Moroccan elections).

As the World Freaks Out About Russian Troops in Syria, Has Anybody Noticed Qatar and Morocco are Sending Ground Trrops to Yemen to Join the GCC Forces Already There?

The Russian buildup in Syria has produced a lot of media attention and expressions of concern, but Syria isn't the only war attracting foreign military intervention. Within days of the death in Yemen of 45 UAE troops  (along with 10 Saudi and five Bahraini troops), Qatar announced that it was deploying 1,000 ground troops to Yemen to join the Saudi-led coalition there, its first dispatch of ground troops there, and Bahrain's King Hamad announced that two of his sons would go to Yemen as part of their national service.

All of the GCC states except for Oman are now participating in the Yemen coalition, and with the Qatari deployment all will have ground troops in Yemen except Kuwait, which is contributing aircraft. Egypt, Jordan, and Sudan are also participating militarily in various ways, and now there are reports that Moroccan ground troops will also be joining the coalition. Reports suggest that up to 6,000 Sudanese troops may be coming as well.

At a time when it is still not clear whether the Russian buildup in Syria is intended to participate in combat or is merely there for force protection and regime protection, it is interesting that there is much less attention (at least in the US media) to the growing ground force commitment in Yemen.

Israel's Yediot/Ynet Publishes New Revelations in the 1965 Ben Barka Assassination Case; Lengthy Story Then Disappears Down Memory Hole

Mehdi Ben Barka

Update: The story has reappeared under a new title, and I haven't compared the two.

Early Sunday morning Israel time the Ynet website, the English online site for Yediot Acharanot, published a lengthy article on the Israeli role in the 1965 disappearance and death of Moroccan dissident Mehdi Ben Barka, called "Secret History: How the Mossad became entangled in a political assassination."

You may note that I didn't link to the article. That is because within 24 hours, perhaps less, it disappeared from the website. 

The article, by investigative journalists Ronen Bergman and Shlomo Nakdimon, remained availble through Google cache last night, but now the cached version also brings up a page not found message.

Fortunately Le Monde had already interviewed one of the authors, (link is in French) and some Algerian  and Palestinian papers ran summaries, but the main story seems to have disappeared down a memory hole.

This is curious. The Israeli press is subject to military censorship, but articles must be cleared before publication. Did censorship clear it in error? Did somebody else spike the story?

If so, they must not understand the Internet. Even when someone manages to delete it from Google Cache, you can't be sure readers haven't already saved copies to the hard drives.

Readers like me.

Screencap of the story

I won't violate their copyright by quoting the story in full, but since it seems to have vanished I'll summarize it.

I previously wrote about the Ben Barka affair back in 2012. The disappearance of Ben Barka from the streets of Paris was a scandal mat the time. French investigations led to the jailing of a few French agents, and the involvement of Moroccan intelligence has long been established. Mossad's role has long been rumored, but with few details known.

Ahmad Dlimi

Bergman and Nakdimon begin by discussing Mossad's good relations with French intelligence dating from the days of the Algerian war, as well as their growing covert relations with Moroccan intelligence. They report that Morocco  provided Israel with full details of the 1965 Arab Summit in Casablanca, and in return asked for Israeli help in locating the exiled dissident, Mehdi Ben Barka.

They directly quote from interviews they had with the Mossad chief at the time, Meir Amit, prior to his death in 2009. According to Amit (as quoted in the article), Israel was willing to cooperate but did not want to get directly involved in a killing.

They helped the Moroccans locate Ben Barka, who traveled frequently, discovering he picked up mil from a kiosk in Geneva. This was conveyed to Moroccan Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Dlimi. (The article spells it Dalimi, but Dlimi is standard in both English nd French.) But then:

But for the Moroccans, Israel's debt had not yet been paid. On October 1, 1965, they requested Mossad agents in Paris to rent them a hiding place and provide them with camouflage, makeup and fake passports. In addition, they wanted Israel to follow their target for them and advise them on how best to send Ben Barka to meet his maker.

According to the protocol of the meetings between Amit and [Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol, only on October 4 did Amit report to the prime minister about the Mossad's involvement. To sweeten the pill of what he was about to tell Eshkol, Amit began with good news, describing the valuable intelligence gathered by the Mossad at the summit in Casablanca. "I want to show you the information about the debates," Amit told Eshkol, and said that intelligence indicated that at that time, the armies of the Arab countries were not ready for war against Israel.

Then came the less good tidings: "What do they want?" Eshkol asked. Amit continued: "A very simple thing: Deliver Mehdi Ben Barka. We found him in Paris and King Hassan gave an order to kill him. They came to us and said: 'We do not want you to do it, but help us.'

Meir Amit

Israel agreed to provide five foreign passports, but they quote Amit as sayi[ng that Eshkol said to him in Yiddish, "It does not smell right to me."

Four days went by. On October 8, Amit told Eshkol: "So far, all is well. We are able to hold on. We are 'ducking' the issue."

But the Moroccans had no intention of "ducking" the issue. On October 12, Dalimi asked Israel for fake car license plates and a poisonous solution. Israel rejected the request for the license plates and suggested the use of rented cars, for which it would provide fake documentation. Dalmi also informed Israel that Oufkir had decided to postpone the operation until the end of October, but did not specify an exact date.

On October 13, 1965, Dalimi left France to return to Morocco, and Amit took this as a sign that the entire operation had been scrapped. "Thank God, they gave up on it," he told Eshkol on the same day.

Besides Amit, the report also cites the work of Dr. Shlomo Ben-Nun, an expert on Israeli-Moroccan relations.


Dlimi and his agents, with the help of French police acting on their own, kidnapped Ben Barka as he arrivved for a meeting at the famed Brasserie Lipp, They took him to an apartment on the outskirts ofn Paris and t]ortured him. The authors cite conflicting reports over whether the Mor0ccans asked Mossad for poison, but say the sources agree that Ben Barka died under torture. Mossad then assisted in disposing of the body in a forest outside Paris.

Muhammad Oufkir

Charkes de Gaulle was furious .at a kidnapping on the streets of Paris in broad daylight,  and reportedly demanded that King Hasan II hand over Dlimi and his superior, Interior Minister Muhammad Oufkir. On November 5, Amit reportedly told Eshkol, "The Moroccans killed Ben Barka. Israel had no physical connection to the act itself."

Much of this has been reported or rumored in the past. But the authors also discuss an internal Israeli blowback from the operation. According to them, Mossad's legendary "founding father," Isser Harel, retired but an adviser to Eshkol, entered the tale. They quote Harel (who died in 2003) as telling them before his death

When Harel heard of the Mossad involvement in the affair, he turned to prime minister Eshkol. Before his death, Harel described the conversation to us: "I told him (Eshkol): 'God sent me to protect you and you became terribly entangled. Amit lied to you all along. You told him not to get involved, and he was involved. Your situation is very grave. You had a consultant on this issue and you didn’t consult him. And it heightens your own responsibility, and now you have to resign.'

"Eshkol really begged for his life," Harel recounted. "I told him, in my opinion, you should appoint an inquiry commission and see who is responsible for this failure, and the findings of the investigation will decide whether you continue as prime minister. And as for Amit, you should know that he did not tell you the truth. You had an advisor and did not use him. Eshkol almost started crying ..."

Isser Harel

Eshkol refused to resign and refused to fire Amit, but continued to pursue the issue, leading to secret investigations and much infighting. Amit blamed Harel's jealousy of his successor. De Gaulle through Mossad's European headquarters out of Paris.

I can't testify to any of this and would normally have just referred you to the link. The whole story is much longer and more detailed than my summary.

As for Muhammad Oufkir, he was implicated in a plot to shoot down the King's plane in 1972, after which he committed suicide, or many believe "committed suicide." Ahmad Dlimi went on to become the hero of the war against POLISARIO in Western Sahara, becoming the most powerful figure since Oufkir and perhaps considered a threat by the King. In 1983, after a meeting with the King, he was killed in an auto accident, the "accidental" nature of which has been widely questioned.

You May Know of the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. But Do You Know About the Quake and Tsunami That Day in Morocco?

The Great Lisbon Earthquake and fire of 1755 remains one of the iconic disasters of modern Europe; it devastated the Portuguese capital and sparked debates between religious folk who saw it as the judgment of an angry God (it occurred on All Saints Day, November 1), and Enlightenment philosophes who saw it as a sign of the arbitrariness of fate, most famously Voltaire, who subjects the eponymous hero of  Candide to it and makes him wonder if Pangloss is right about this being the best of all possible worlds. (Voltaire also wrote a separate essay on the earthquake.) Since I assume my readers are well-read, you probably know about the Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1, 1755, but let me ask if you've heard of the destructive Tsunami that hit Morocco less than an hour later, and may have been as deadly there as in Portugal?

Though far from the deadliest earthquake by world standards, the 1755 shock, fire and Tsunami in Lisbon (the largest Tsunami on record for the North Atlantic) had a major impact in Europe, but many overlook the impact on Morocco.

The epicenter, as shown in the map at right from Wikipedia, was west of the Strait of Gibraltar; this is at a point where he Eurasian tectonic plate meets the African plate, though of course  plate tectonics were unknown  at the time. Although Lisbon's destruction is famous, the Algarve in southwestern Spain and Portugal and the coastal cities of Morocco may have suffered even worse from the quake itself and the resulting Tsunami, though Lisbon was in part destroyed by an accompanying fire. We know they were devastated, though casualty counts are slippery, in Morocco as in Portugal. Totals in the tens of thousands dead, however, are often cited for both sides of the Strait, with some going to six figures. But Voltaire didn't put Candide in Tangier or Rabat. Most estimates put the total dead in Morocco at at least 10,000, perhaps higher. The quake was also felt in Algiers.

Of course, the highly useful Japanese word tsunami was unknown in Europe in 1755; in Portuguese it was known as a maremoto, a movement of the sea.

While the earthquake is historically known as the Great Lisbon Earthquake, its effect, and that of the following tsunami, also took a toll on Spain and Morocco, particularly but not exclusively the coastal areas.

The sources for the Moroccan damage are scattered, including native Moroccan writers, Spanish and Portuguese priests living in those country's enclaves in Morocco, and European consuls. Because Morocco also suffered another earthquake wave the same month, November 18-19 centered in the Rif Mountains, some have argued (for example P.L.Blanc, cited below) that the reports of intense damage to the interior cities of Meknes (badly hit), Marrakech, and Fes may have conflated the November 1 earthquske with the later ones, but this is still debatable. Discussion and citation of these source can be found in online studies such as Evaluation du risque tsunamique sur la littoral Atlantique, a doctoral thesis by Samira Mellas in French; and  P.L. Blanc, "Earthquakes and tsunami in November 1755 in Morocco: a different reading of contemporaneous documentary sources."

Without studying each of the sources more carefully, I can't judge whether the damage from two separate quakes has been conflated, but in any event, both coastal and interior cities in Morocco suffered severe damage in November, 1755.

Along the coast, the Tsunami was devastating, though a reported height of 75 feet for the waves at El Jadida (then known by its Amazigh namd Mazagan or in Portuguese as Mazagão) is debated as being a likely exaggeration. Some reports claim that at Tangier the waves submerged the city walls. In Assila, the water entered the streets of the city, and along with the force of the earthquake, many houses were destroyed.

At the twin cities of Rabat and Salè, which face each other across the Bou Regreg River ships were sunk in he river and many drowned. Farther south at Safi there was also extensive damage. Agadir was also affected.

In the interior, there was certainly earthquake damage in Meknès, Marrakesh, and Fes; columns at the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis also fell. Blanc argues that the damage in the interior was from the later November 18-19 quakes (the dates given by European reports; Mor0ccan reports date hem November 27-28). This is not established and reports written before those dates do refer to damage and deaths in the interior cities.

Casualty figures may be exaggerated (and the European ones distinguish between casualties among Christians, Jews, and "Moors," but certainly most accounts place the dead in multiple thousands. Though what made Lisbon so destructive was the combination of earthquake, Tsunami, and fire, the Moroccan accounts do not appear to speak of fire as a destructive force. Still, it seems clear that the Great Lisbon Earthquake was also the Great Moroccan earthquake.

Here's a modern simulation of the Tsunami:

George Washington Writes a Letter to the Sultan of Morocco: Our Oldest Treaty Always in Force

Surely this needs no caption

Sunday (February 22) will be George Washington's actual birthday (adjusted for the Gregorian calendar), though we celebrated last week on the President's Day holiday. Back in 2013, I posted a 1789 letter Washington wrote to the Sultan of Morocco,  but this is not a rerun of that post, but rather a fuller contextualization of the origins of US-Moroccan relations.

The US-Moroccan Treaty of Friendship of 1786, ratified by the Confederation Congress under the Articles of Confederation (before the US Constitution), has been renegotiated on occasion but is said to be the oldest US treaty still in force and never broken.

Sultan Muhmmad III ibn ‘Abdullah

I've noted more than once that Morocco had actually been trying to get our attention since 1777, when, on December 20, 1777, the Sultan of Morocco, Sidi Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah, also known as Sultan Muhammad III, issued a decree allowing any ship bearing the flag of the new United States of America, to put in at Moroccan ports. Both Morocco and the United States now retroactively see this as the first recognition of the US by a foreign power. (France would be the second, but not until 1778; in 1776, a port in the Dutch East Indies fired a salute to a US-flagged ship, but that did not represent the Dutch home government, which eventually followed the French lead.)

I suspect the painting of the Sultan is not contemporary; it's from Wikipedia.

The problem was, the US didn't immediately notice. In fact the day before the Sultan's decree, on December 19, 1777, George Washington and the Continental Army went into winter camp at a place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and spent a winter when the sunny shores of Morocco doubtless seemed terribly remote and the prospects of winning the war seemed almost as remote.

The Sultan's move came at a time when most European powers were paying tribute to the North African ("Barbary") states to permit them to trade; the American Declaration of Independence meant that the British tribute no longer granted them privileges.

In 1778 the Sultan appointed  a French merchant in Salé, next to Rabat, as consul for those countries not represented by consuls in Morocco. Caille wrote to Benjamin Franklin, the American representative in Paris, in 1778, suggesting negotiations for a treaty with the United States.

Late in 1780, according to a history published by the US Embassy in Morocco, the Continental Congress approved the idea, telling Caille to move toward such a treaty. But only after the 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain did the project move forward. In May 1784 Congress authorized Franklin, John Adams (US envoy to London), and Thomas Jefferson (the new envoy to Paris) to negotiate the deal. In October 1784, a Moroccan corsair seized an American merchantman in the Atlantic, and the Sultan pointedly noted that he had been asking for a treaty for several years. In 1785, Thomas Barclay, US Consul-General in Paris, was sent to Morocco to negotiate the terms. Adams in London wrote to Jefferson in Paris, "If Mr. Barclay will undertake the voyage, I am for looking no farther. We cannot find a steadier, or more prudent man." Barclay reached Marrakesh, then the Sultan's capital, on June 19, 1786. On June 28 the treaty was signed and sealed by the Sultan; you can read the English text here.

It was valid for 50 years and was indeed renewed in 1836. An additional article was added on July 6, 1786. Jefferson signed it in Paris on January 1, 1787; Adams signed in London on January 25, and the Confederation Congress ratified it and it entered into legal force on July 18, 1787. It remains in force.

Before getting to Washington's letter to the Sultan, a side note: in 1821 the Sultan's successor gave the US the property which became the US Consulate in Tangier. (The first Consul had arrived in 1797.) That site is now the oldest US diplomatic property abroad in continuous use, and it was the first overseas extraterritorial property named to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Site. It served as the US Legation until 1956, when with Moroccan independence an Embassy was opened in Rabat, and today is the he Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, with a museum and cultural center.

But I started this out as a George Washington's birthday post, so let's focus. In the same year, 1787, of the Treaty of Marrakesh, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia produced a new US Constitution which, after due ratification by the states,entered into force in 1789.  In that year, too, as anyone who lives in Washington or has ever seen a dollar bill knows, George Washington was elected President. On December 1, 1789. he responded to a 1788 letter from the Sultan to which no one had replied.

The text, from the Mount Vernon website (image of original above):                                             

City of New York December 1, 1789

Great and Magnanimous Friend,

           Since the date of the letter which the late Congress, by their President, addressed to your Imperial Majesty, The United States of America have thought proper to change  their government and institute a new one, agreeable to the Constitution, of which I have the honor, herewith, to enclose a copy. The time necessarily employed in the arduous  task, and the disarrangements occasioned by so great though peaceable a revolution, will apologize, and account for your Majesty’s not having received those regularly advised marks of attention from the United States which the friendship and magnanimity of your conduct toward them afforded reason to expect.

           The United States, having unanimously appointed me to supreme executive authority in this Nation. Your Majesty’s letter of August 17, 1788, which by reason of the dissolution of the late-government, remained unanswered, has been delivered to me. I have also received the letters which Your Imperial Majesty has been so kind as to  write, in favor of the United States, to the Bashaws of Tunis and Tripoli, and I present to you the sincere acknowledgements and thanks of the United States for this important  mark of your friendship for them.

           We greatly regret the hostile disposition of those regencies toward this nation, who have never injured them, is not to be removed, on terms of our power to comply with. 

           Within our territories there are no mines, wither of gold or silver, and this young nation just recovering from the waste and dissolution of a long war, have not, as yet, had time to acquire riches by agriculture and commerce. But our soil is bountiful, and our people industrious, and we have reason to flatter ourselves that we shall gradually become useful to our friends.

           The encouragement which Your Majesty has been pleased, generously, to give to our commerce with your dominions, the punctuality with which you have caused the Treaty with us to be observed, and the just and generous measures taken in the case of Captain Proctor, make a deep impression on the United States and confirm their respect for and attachment to Your Imperial Majesty.

           It gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity of assuring Your Majesty that, while I remain at the head of this nation, I shall not cease to promote every measure that may conduce to the friendship and harmony which so happily subsist between your Empire and them, and shall esteem myself happy in every occasion of convincing Your Majesty of the high sense (which in common with the whole nation) I entertain the magnanimity, wisdom and benevolence of Your Majesty.

           May the Almighty bless Your Imperial Majesty, our Great and Magnanimous friend, with His constant guidance and protection.  

                                                                                              - George Washington

For Lincoln's Birthday, a Reprise of "Flap Over Confederates Seized in Tangier, 1862"

Abraham Lincoln would have been 206 today, so while I'm rewriting my Zeppelin post I thought I'd revisit a post I originally ran two years ago:

Today is Abraham Lincoln's 204th birthday, as Americans used to know before Lincoln's birthday (February 12) and Washington's (February 22) were merged into a generic "President's Day." The US Civil War generally didn't involve the Middle East (though as I've noted in  "Stone Pasha and the Khedive Ismail's Yanks and Rebs," officers from both sides were actively recruited into the Egyptian Army after the war, and one became the Egyptian Chief of Staff under Khedives Ismail and Tawfiq.) But I thought today we'd focus on one diplomatic incident that did engage some of Lincoln's attention: the arrest by the US Consul in Tangier of two Confederates visiting that Moroccan city in February 1862, 151 years ago this month. It isnt well known but in addition to the Union, the Confederacy, and the Sultanate of Morocco, it also managed to draw in the British and French consuls and home governments.

As I noted a while back, on December 20, 1777, the Sultan of Morocco issued a decree allowing ships flying the new American flag to trade freely at Moroccan ports, which is sometimes seen as the first foreign state to recognize American independence. (The Dutch East Indies had already saluted the flag, but formal recognition by the Home Dutch Government was later.) It wasn't until 1779 that the Americans (who were busy fighting Redcoats) actually noticed, after Ben Franklin in Paris called their attention to it and the Sultan (Franklin called him "the Emperor") had been asking. Finally in 1786 a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation was signed, the Treaty of Marrakesh. Morocco never asked the US for tribute and avoided the conflicts its neighbors faced in the Barbary Wars. An American Consulate was established in Tangier, and in 1821 the Sultan gave the US the building which has since been the consulate (until 1956, the US' main diplomatic post in Tangier). It's said to be the oldest US diplomatic property still in use.

Against this background (and then as now the Moroccans were proud of their priority as American allies), in early 1862 the Consulate in Tangier became entangled in a messy diplomatic dispute over the seizure of two Confederate agents. Tangier was, at the time, under the typical sort of foreign concession under which European consuls (including the US as honorary Europeans) had legal jurisdiction over their nationals. And Morocco recognized the United States of America, and unlike many European states had not declared neutrality in the American war, so Confederate States citizens had no standing.

Also important background: the United States had just resolved a major crisis with Great Britain known as the Trent Affair, in which an American naval captain, acting on his own, intercepted a British ship at sea and removed two Confederate agents, Mason and Slidell, who were en route to London and Paris respectively. The British reacted with threats of war, including a buildup of troops in Canada, and Lincoln, saying he could fight only one war at a time, had to release the Confederate agents. That was resolved in January; in February a US consul in Morocco created a new, if lesser, diplomatic problem along the same lines.

CSS Sumter Running the Blockade, 1861

The Confederate States Ship CSS Sumter was the first of the Confederate Commerce Raiders. She ran the blockade in New Orleans in 1861 (picture), raided US merchantmen off Cuba and Martinique and in the Atlantic, capturing a significant number, and then put into Cadiz. Damaged and unable to refuel in Spain, she made for the neutral British port of Gibraltar.

Pursuing US vessels stood outside the territorial limit, in effect blockading her in Gibraltar; she was in need of repairs and still denied coal.

Raphael Semmes, CSA Navy

Thomas Tate Tunstall

Now the captain of the Sumter was Commander Raphael Semmes, who within the next two years would become the most famous of Confederate naval heroes as the Captain of the CSS Alabama. Besieged in Gibraltar, Semmes hit upon the idea of sending two agents across the Strait to Tangier, to buy a Moroccan ship carrying coal and sail it to Gibraltar to refuel Sumter. The two men were his own ship's paymaster, Lt. Henry Myers, a Georgian, and an Alabamian living in Cadiz, Thomas Tate Tunstall (usually called Tom Tate Tunstall), who had been US Consul in Cadiz until President Lincoln removed him for his Confederate sympathies. The two men took a French vessel to Tangier. Somehow (Tunstall later blamed two American missionaries on the same ship who had overheard conversations), their mission became known to the Union.

LT Henry Myers, CSN

 (Also, Semmes at the time claimed they were sightseeing in Tangier en route to Cadiz from Gibraltar. Tunstall acknowledged the real mission after the war.)

In any event, someone reported the two Confederates' presence in Tangier. The US Consul at the time, James DeLong, deciding that the Sumter had essentially been engaged in piracy, that Tunstall was a former US diplomat and Myers a defector from the US Navy, decided to have them arrested. Using his consular privilege he got the Moroccan authorities to arrest them and deliver them to the consulate, where they were quite literally clapped in irons.

US Consul James DeLong

The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies,one of the main sources I've drawn from in this account, includes an extensive correspondence by an outraged Semmes. He appealed to the British in Gibraltar, who had little to gain from the fight and not only declared neutrality but in delivering Semmes' complaint to Morocco gave the Moroccans what Semmes saw as carte blanche.
 
He then tried the French, since the two captives had debarked from a French ship and, in his view, should have had French consular protection. He wrote to Confederate agents Mason in London and Slidell in Paris, but to little avail. The naval supply ship USS Ino sailed to Tangier to take custody of the captives. There were extensive protests by the European trading community in Tangier, and reportedly the Ino's commander had to draw his sword to the crowd to bring them aboard, still in irons.

To add insult to injury, the Ino sailed first to Algeciras, within full view of Semmes aboard the crippled Sumter in Gibraltar across the bay. It then took them to Cadiz, where another US vessel took them to Boston.

Semmes' efforts, however, did have some eventual effect. The French government eventually complained; pressure from other consulates reportedly led to some questions in Morocco, and there were murmurings in the British Parliament.  Perhaps as a result, Lincoln (while not disavowing the arrests as in the Trent Affair), ordered that the captives be considered not as Americans arrested for treason but as prisoners of war. Lt. Myers was accordingly exchanged for a Union POW in Confederate hands, and Tunstall, the civilian, allowed to return to the South.

Tunstall, however, immediately began a career as a blockade runner, was captured, and this time his captors insisted he could only be paroled if he agreed to stay abroad for the duration. He did.

Interestingly, though, Tunstall after the war again served as a US Consul: President Cleveland sent him to El Salvador, where the Spanish he had learned in Cadiz was of use.

Lincoln didn't apologize, but in March, 1862, a few weeks after all this, he did relieve James DeLong as US Consul in Tangier, the man who started it all. I suspect he wished he hadn't been quite so proactive.

Note on sources: I'm drawing this from multiple sources, including Semmes' memoirs, biographies of him and obituaries of Tunstall, the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, etc. I can't cite them all here.

Vanished States: The Rifian Republic, 1921-1926

In 2012 I began a (very) occasional series of posts labeled "Vanished States,"  about nascent states that had only brief lives. History is full  of such states, so I limited my scope to the 20th century. I did posts on the Republic of Hatay (1938-39), the Syrian Arab Kingdom under Faisal (four months in 1920), and the Hashemite Kingdom of the Hejaz (1916-1925). Then I for some reason didn't return to the theme, though there were many other candidates. Today, one that would provide a model for many anti-colonial guerrillas, but also a model for modern technological means of colonial powers' suppressing suppressing "native" resistance: the five year life of the Rifian Republic and the brutal Rif War, in which Spain, and eventually France as well, would dismantle it. It was arguably the only Tamazight-speaking "state" to enjoy brief independence in the past century.

Morocco had been the last of the North African states to come under European colonial rule, with Spain, which had long held an enclave at Ceuta, declaring a protectorate along the northern coast, while France, often opposed by Germany, sought to create a protectorate in the rest of Morocco proper. (Spain also expanded into the future Western Sahara.) By 1912 France and Spain held their own protectorate zones in Morocco, and in 1923 Tangier became an international city.

While the Sultan of Morocco had little choice but to acquiesce, his nominal subjects were not so willing. As they had already done in Algeria, the French spent much time in warfare with rebellious tribes: think of just about every Foreign Legion movie ever made.(except for The Last Remake of Beau Geste) (1977). Often the fiercest resistance came from Amazigh ("Berber") tribes, from the desert Touareg to the mountain tribes of the Atlas in French Morocco and the Rif Mountains in Spanish Morocco. (Although al-Rif in standard Arabic means "the countryside" and, because the l of the article elides as ar-Rif, one may assume this is the origin of the name, but it seems to be an indigenous Tamazight name, Arif, which just happens to sound the same (and in Arabic is spelled al-Rif). It takes Berber derivatives (the language is Tarifit) and some have suggested it relates to the Canarian name Tenerife. In Morocco it refers not to any countryside but specifically to the mountain range along the country's northern coast, which is not geologically part of the Atlas, but linked with the Spanish chain across the Strait of Gibraltar, including Gibraltar itself.

Flag of the Rifian Republic

It's the Rif we're interested in here, for here, where for five years, the Tagduda n Arif  as it was known in the Tarifit form of Tamazight, or the Confederal Republic of the Tribes of the Rif, had its life.

This was no evanescent fantasy. For five years the Rifian Republic held the Spanish Army at bay, only succumbing after a brutal war in which France joined with Spain and which saw mustard gas dropped from aircraft despite the post World War I Geneva Protocol against the use of poison gas. The Rifian Republic had its own flag, its own currency, and a national anthem you can hear later in this post. It had a charismatic leader who had both political and military talents. His name would eventually be ranked among the greatest anticolonial resistance leaders: ‘Abdel Krim.

‘Abdel Krim

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi, to give him his formal Arabic name, or Muḥend n Ɛabd Krim Lxeṭṭabi in one transliteration of his Tarifit name, was born in Ajdir, the future capital of his Rifian Republic, in 1882 or 1883. He and his brother were given traditional Islamic educations in Ajdir, Tetouan, and Fez, and also Spanish educations, becoming translators. He became Chief Qadi in Melilla (the Spanish enclave, not part of the Protectorate) and published a newspaper in Spanish.

Alarmed at Spanish efforts to occupy unoccupied areas of the Rif, ostensibly to combat the warlord/brigand Ahmad al-Raisuni (he of Teddy Roosevelt's "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead" [Raisuni is the proper spelling] ultimatum; another post for another day), ‘Abdel Krim returned to Ajdir and raised his revolt.

Spanish Morocco; Rifian Republic's Claimed Borders in Red

Colonial powers often began these sorts of wars with a fundamental assumption of their own superiority. When the Spanish general moving into the claimed territory received an ultimatum from ‘Abdel Krim, he reportedly laughed it off. In July of 1921, after a fierce battle at Annual, some 8000 Spanish troops had died out of a force of 20,000. Annual remains a major resistance victory against a colonial army, a sort of proto-Dien Bien Phu.. The Spanish Army soon discovered that it was a poor match for highly motivated mountaineers defending their own territory. At its worst point, it found itself holding little more than Melilla and the area around Tangier.

Rifian One Riffan Note

On September 18, 1921, the Rifian Republic's independence was formally declared. It adopted its own currency, the Riffan, The images I've found are in Arabic and English, not Spanish or French. (There was no accepted version of writing Tarifit at the time.)

The Rifian Republic, though unrecognized internationally, would become a model for many later anticolonial struggles. ‘Abdel Krim's guerrilla tactics (he never had more than a few thousand truly professional fighters, the rest being tribal militia's defending their home turf) would become a model for later guerrilla fighters such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and the FLN in Algeria, though the latter also had the model of the great resistance fighter ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza'iri.

In keeping with acquiring all the trappings of sovereignty, the Rifian Republic also had a rather martial National Anthem:

 Chastened by their losses, the Spanish began relying on their own version of the French Foreign Legion to wage the Moroccan fight. The second in command was a colonel named Francisco Franco. You may have heard of him.

Through 1921 and 1922 the war was fierce, and the Spanish performance uneven despite numerical and technological superiority. The performance of the Spanish Army in the Rif helped propel events in Spain as well, and the 1923 coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera was in part a reaction. That would set the stage for the whole Spanish tragedy of the 1930s, the Revolution, Civil War, and proxy rehearsal for the Second World War.

By 1924, the Spanish were resorting to dropping mustard gas from aircraft, violating the new Geneva prohibitions but also learning aerial bombing tactics. Britain and France were also learning bombing strategies from fighting colonial resistance, that would see fruition in 1939-45. Germany had no colonies after 1918, so it practiced in Spain.

Back in the Rif, France had moved forces into areas disputed with the Rifian Republic and Rifian forces attacked them. The French had already had discussions with Spain about intervention, and the French were far more experienced with North African warfare than the Spanish. (Not to mention the well-established reputation of the French Foreign Legion, technically known in military terms as "pretty badass.")

French intervention and a massive Spanish landing of troops, combined with aerial bombardment and the use of mustard gas, eventually turned the tide. But the Rif War was as fierce as it got at the time. Wikipedia isn't always a great source, but their casualty figures are:  Spain: 23,000 casualties of whom 18,000 dead; France: 10,000 dead and 8,500 wounded; Rifians, 30,000 casualties including 10,000 dead.

For contemporary Americans, Time magazine is a fading shadow of its former self, but when it was founded in 1923 it was radically new: a weekly summary of the news of America and the worlf. From the beginning each issue had a portrait on the cover. Down into at least the 1970s, being on the cover of Time was a sign you had made it. As near as I can make out, the first Middle Easterner to appear on Time's cover was Atatürk on March 24, 1923; then Fuad I of Egypt on April 28 of the same year; in 1924 nobody unless you include Greece (Venizelos).

Then, in 1925, only the third Middle Eastern figure to appear on a Time cover, is, on August 17, 1925, was none other than ‘Abdel Krim. Sure, he's sinister looking, but it reminds us the world took him seriously.

On May 26,1926, at Targuist, ‘Abdel Krim surrendered. Given his experience with Spain, it is probably no surprise that he surrendered to the French.

Like other French captive nationalist leaders, he was sent to Réunion in the Indian Ocean (just as the British favored the Seychelles or Mauritius), where he lived in comfortable exile from 1926-1947. In the latter year he was allowed to move to France, but managed to gain asylum in Egypt.

After Moroccan independence, King Muhammad V reportedly invited him to return to Morocco, and he is said to have said he would not return until all French forces were out of North Africa. He lived to witness the independence of Morocco and Tunisia and the expulsion of the French base at Bizerte, and finally, he lived to witness the end of French rule in Algeria in July of 1962.

‘Abdel Krim going into exile

Almost exactly seven months after the last colonial forces left the Maghreb, ‘Abdel Krim died in Cairo on February 6, 1963.

Yennayer: Happy Amazigh New Year, 2015/2965! Aseggas Amagaaz!

I've said before that despite the disappointments of "Arab Spring," the enthusiasm of "Amazigh Spring" has not dissipated. The Amazigh or "Berber" peoples of North Africa have been enjoying a cultural recrudescence. Though the large Amazigh populations in Morocco and Algeria were always politically active, the Amazigh peoples of Libya were long repressed, with Qadhafi denying their very existence and their language banned. They, and he small Amazigh population of Tunisia, have gone through a conscienceless-raising of sorts. One indication of this has been more widespread celebration of the traditional Amazigh New Year, known as Yennayer (January), on January 14. (Or, among many Algerian Imazighen, on January 12.)

January 14 is simply the date January 1 in the Julian calendar, now running 13 days behind the Gregorian, and it is the traditional New Year for North African agriculturalists, Arab as well as Amazigh. Since the Islamic calendar is purely lunar, it is of little relevance for planting or harvest as it moves around the solar calendar from year to year. Just as in Egypt the fellahin, Muslim or Copic, use the Coptic months as their agricultural calendar,o do North Africans use the old Roman months (Yennayer=Januarius) for planting. (The Coptic calendar is also Julian, but their New Year is in September.) Amazigh in particular have embraced Yennayer as a particularly Amazigh holiday.

Since the Amazigh Spring began I've posted several background pieces on the New Year. My 2012 posting went into the background in some detail. That post also addressed the modern creation of an Amazigh "era," the source of that 2965 date above. While the Julian agricultural calendar is real and ancient, that 2965 date is what the late historian Eric Hobsbawm called "the invention of tradition," a modern creation pretending to antiquity. The Academie Berbere in Paris in the 1960s introduced a "Berber" era based on the accession to the throne of Egypt of the Pharaoh Shoshenq I (also Sheshonq) in 950 BC (roughly). Shoshenq came from Libya, so they identified him as Berber (still the most common usage at the time. (The modern Kurdish calendar era, which dates from the rise of the Medes in about 612 BC, is a parallel case.)

My 2013 (or 2963 if you prefer) New year's post dealt mainly with the big blowout concert held at a stadium in Tripoli (which will clearly not be repeated this year, but was equally unthinkable under Qadhafi.

And last year I dealt with the discrepancy between those Algerian Imazighen who observe the New Year on January 12 while everyone else marks it on January 14.

I would urge the curious to read these previous posts.

The Tamazight New Year's Greeting is spelled many different ways in English (Assegas Amagaaz, Asegas Amegaz), or as below, which also shows it in the Tifinagh script. (The link is to my 2011 post on Tifinagh. And remember "Berber" is not a single dialect/language, and Tifinagh is usually back-spelled from French, Arabic, or English transcriptions.)

Key Figure in Morocco's PJD Killed When Hit by Train (?)

Abdellah Baha, a key figure in Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), a Minister of State and a man frequently described as the "right-hand man" of Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, was killed yesterday when he was hit by a train, according to an announcement by the Interior Minster. Official reports did not make clear if he was on foot or in his car, but an unofficial report had earlier said he suffered a car accident. (See here for a longer account in French.)

The accident reportedly occurred at the town of Bouzika between Casablanca and Rabat, and the news raised some eyebrows since a Parliamentary Deputy from the leftist Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), Ahmed Zaidi, died on November 9 when his car was submerged in the Oued Cherrat river. Some reports suggested Baha was checking out the site where Zaidi died. The coincidence of two national political figures dying in the same town just a month apart in somewhat uncommon accidents may be expected to fuel conspiracy theories. They're probably unjustified, but I'm still not planning to drive through Bouzika just now.

Tomorrow is July 4: A Few Relevant Notes

Is it the fourth?

Those were Thomas Jefferson's last words on July 4, 1826: He died on the 50th anniversary of his Declaration of Independence. That would be remarkable enough, but his old rival politically (but friend and avid correspondent in retirement), John Adams, also a member of the Declaration's drafting committee, died on the same day, the 50th anniversary. I have always wondered how America's second and third Presidents managed to do that, one in Virginia and one in Massachusetts.

But they did, and tomorrow is indeed the fourth, and a holiday.

The third and final installment of my three-part account of the 1916 surrender at Kut will go up late this evening, after which I intend to enjoy the long holiday weekend. I thought though that I might remind you of a few past posts that may be relevant for the anniversary of American independence:

From 2011: "For the Fourth: The First to Recognize US Independence: The Sultan of Morocco."  In 1777. The trouble is, the Continental Congress didn't hear about it for some time and responded in 1780.

Also from 2011, since this year the fourth falls during Ramadan: "Thomas Jefferson's Iftar." Jefferson postponed a dinner for the Tunisian Minister until sundown in 1805.

I have not read Denise A. Spellberg's 2013 Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders, but it would also seem to be relevant reading for the Fourth.

And the words of the Declaration itself prompted me last year to note (since Egypt's coup was July 3): "On July 4, May Egypt's New Government Remember What Morsi Forgot."

But I shouldn't preach: my own government often fails to live up to the ideals of Jefferson's truly revolutionary document. (As, of course, did the slaveholder who wrote that all men are created equal.) Yet other colonial peoples have followed our model, all too often without our support.

Kut Part III is coming tonight, and then after that I'll see you Monday.

Moroccan Higher Education Minister: Promote English over French

Morocco's Minister of Higher Education Lahcen Daoudi has urged that Moroccan Universities emphasize English instead of French, particularly as a language if instruction in the sciences.

Talking to Al-Yaoum 24, Douadi declared that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research will impose English in engineering and medical programs. The ministry is to make‘ “English proficiency a condition for obtaining a doctorate.’’

“Thus, students who want to have access to science departments at Moroccan universities must be proficient in English,’’ Daoudi explained.

Daoudi declared that the ministry’s policy of adopting French Baccalaureate in the country is “a dubious solution”, to Morocco’s ailing education system explaining that “French is no longer useful”.

Morocco Lifts Ban on Amazigh Names

It's rather unusual that I have two posts in succession on Amazigh ("Berber") languages, but after my previous post on Mzab in Algeria, here's another: "Morocco Lifts the Ban on Amazigh Names."

The High Commission of the Civil Registry confirmed on Monday the freedom of Moroccans to choose the names of their children, provided the names do not breach morality or public order, without distinction between Arabic, Amazigh, Hassani, or Hebrew names, and in accordance with the provisions of the law relating to civil status.

Hasssani is a dialect of Arabic particularly associated with Mauritania an the Western Sahara.

Anir, Sifaw, Tifawt, Thiyya, and Bahac are some of the many Amazigh names that had been unauthorized in Morocco.

The Amazigh families have been denied the right to name their children some Amazigh names since 1996, when a circular was sent to Moroccan civil status registry offices banning Amazigh names.

Since then, activists have led a fierce campaign against what they call a “racist and discriminatory law” targeting Amazighs, and Amazigh associations have been putting pressure on Moroccan authority to recognize Amazigh names.

Arab Spring may be withering, but the less-touted Amazigh Spring seems to be moving right along.

So, Is Berber New Year January 12 or January 14?

Just when you thought the holidays were finally over, more are about to hit: Amazigh ("Berber") New Year, and also by coincidence this year the Prophet's Birthday, Mawlid al-Nabi, both in the next few days.

But in the case of Yannayer, the so-called Amazigh New Year, there's some disagreement about the date, with some in Algeria celebrating on January 12, and others insisting on January 14.

Now, as I've explained at greater length a couple of years ago, Yannayer is part genuine traditional observance, and part a modern creation, a product of the contemporary Berber Revival. North African farmers traditionally followed a solar calendar or planting, since the Islamic calendar,being purely lunar, moves around the seasons and cannot be used as a agricultural calendar. This is the practice throughout the Middle East: In the Levant the old Syrian months are used, and in Egypt the Coptic calendar. North African agriculturalists kept the nmes of the old Roman months and followed the Julian calendar; New Year's is called "Yannayer," from "January." The Julian calendar is currently 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar, so the Julian New Year falls on January 14 under the Gregorian calendar.

Amazigh Flag

But many of the trappings of the modern Berber celebration are what the late historian Eric Hobsbawm called the "Invention of Tradition," modern creations aimed at reviving national identity. This includes the fact that this new year will be 2964 in the Berber Calendar. This calendar was a creation of the Académie Berbère, a group of young intellectuals, mostly Algerian Kabyles, who introduced the common Berber flag often seen today and popularized he use of the ancient Tifinagh alphabet to write Tamazight; it was somewhat arbitrarily decided to date th Berber calendar from 950 BC, when Pharaoh Shoshenq I ascended the throne of Egypt. Shoshenq (or Sheshonq) was Libyan, and that was good enough to persuade the Académie Berbère to consider him the first Berber in history. So the era does not really date from 950 BC but from Paris around 1968 AD.

And apparently the tendency of many Algerian Amazigh to celebrate Yannayer on January 12 instead of 14 also dates from 1968, though it isn't clear why the two-day difference from the Julian calendar occurred; some accounts suggest a simple error in calculation, though as Eastern Christmas jusy reminded us, many religions and cultures retain the Julian calendar for some purposes. Maybe it was the political ferment in Paris in 1968, or something, but the January 12 date seems to have stuck for some Algerian Amazigh, while elsewhere the January 14 date is followed. Given the post-2011 revival of Amazigh identity in Tunisia and Libya, which last year held a big concert for Yannayer, they also obsrve the holiday formerly limited mostly to Morocco and Algeria.

A happy new year to Amazigh readers, on whichever date you prefer.

Fatima Oufkir, 1935-2013, Has Died

In 1972, General Mohammed Oufkir, Morocco's Minister of Defense, tried to overthrow King Hassan II; several attempts by the Air Force to shoot the King's plane down failed, and Oufkir "committed suicide." The quotes are most likely merited.

General Oufkir's career was over, but his wife and children had a couple of decades of hell ahead of them. They were kept under house arrest in desert prisons until 1991; some of the children grew to adulthood in detention, before pressure from human rights groups led to their freedom.

His widow, Fatima Oufkir, has died at the age of 78. (Link is in Arabic.) She had written a memoir (book and links are in French), and a memoir by her daughter Malika (who was a prisoner from age 9 to 28) has appeared in English.

More on the family at Oprah Winfrey's website, probably my first link to Oprah in nearly five years of blogging. But for the English-only readers, there you go.

RIP for a lady who suffered with her family through no clear fault of her own.

48 Years Ago Today, Mehdi Ben Barka Disappeared . . .

Mehdi Ben Barka

On October 29, 1965, the exiled Moroccan leftist opposition figure Mehdi Ben Barka headed to the famous Brasserie Lipp on Paris' Boulevard St. Germain for a supposed meeting he expected to be about making a film for an upcoming conference he was organizing in Havana on Third World liberation movements. Unidentified men grabbed him, shoved him into a car, and drove away. He has not been seen since.

In theory, the French consider the case still open (though no one expects a now 93-year-old Ben Barka to turn up suddenly); it's clear that Moroccan agents were involved, but there are a lingering questions about the role of French intelligence, since he was snatched in a very public place in Paris. (And, of course, some versions bring both the CIA and Mossad into the plot. Though the Middle East loves a good conspiracy theory, it's also true that the French, American and Israeli services all had close links with the Moroccan in those days.)

In 2012 I wrote a bit about the case, after a French judge tried to have the British arrest the head of the Moroccan Olympic committee at the London Olympics.

Plaque at Brasserie Lipp

Two French officers were jailed in 1967, but the French court blamed the plot on then-Moroccan Interior Minister Mohammed Oufkir, who was killed in 1972 during an attempt to overthrow the King; various alleged accounts of what happened agree Ben Barka was either killed or died under interrogation, but the accounts don't match (the body was dissolved in acid, or encased in concrete, depending on the version). Wikipedia offers a summary of various accounts and theories.

In two years, it will have been half a century. But this is not the sort of operation likely to be declassified even at this remove.

50 Years Ago, a Largely Forgotten War: the 1963 Moroccan-Algerian "Sand War"

We've talked quite a bit about the 40th anniversary of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, but this week also marked the 50th anniversary of  a much less well-known conflict, the 1963 border war between Morocco and Algeria, often referred to as the "Sand War."

Algeria, after its long fight against France, had finally won its independence in 1962, the previous year. Moroccan nationalists were calling for a "Greater Morocco" including  irredentist claims to neighboring territories, including the still-Spanish Western Sahara, but also including the Algerian oases of Tindouf and Béchar. Morocco claimed these territories which had been incorporated into Algeria under French rule. After some border skirmishing, Morocco invaded Algeria on October 13-14, 1963.

Though Morocco made initial advances, and had far better equipment than the Algerians, Algeria had a large popular force of independence war veterans skilled in guerrilla warfare, and despite some heavy fighting in the disputed region and around the Moroccan oasis of Figuig, by November the war was stalemated and the then-new Organization of African Unity provided mediation efforts.

The war ended with no territorial changes, but the two countries have been rivals ever since, with Algeria later supporting the POLISARIO Front in the Western Sahara war years later.

A video report from the era:

France Belatedly (as in 70 Years Late) Honors Moroccan Troops Who Fougtht to Liberate Corsica

Hmm . . . first I note the passing of the mastermind of Dien Bien Phu, and now here's another reminder of the former French Empire: "Overdue 'merci' extended to Morocco WWII vets." (Also see France 24 video in English, not embeddable, at this link.)

Seventy years ago today marked the completion of the liberation of Corsica from the Axis by Free French Forces.  As I have noted before, there was a substantial North African colonial presence in the Free French ranks.  Corsica was liberated by the Free French I Army Corps. According to Wikipedia, this was its Order of Battle:

While British and American troops invaded mainland Italy in September 1943, the 1st Army Corps, comprising Headquarters, 4th Moroccan Mountain Division (4^e DMM), the 1st Regiment of Moroccan Tirailleurs (1^er RTM), the 4th Regiment of Moroccan Spahis (4^e RSM) (light tank), the 2nd Group of Moroccan Tabors (2^e GTM), the Commandos de Choc battalion and the 3rd Battalion, 69th Mountain Artillery Regiment (69^e RAM),^[9] landed on the island of Corsica in the same month.

A very heavy Moroccan participation, in other words. The French President and the Moroccan King are honoring several survivors of the Corsican operation with the Legion of Honor, though the France 24 says only about 2% of the Moroccan troops who fought in the war are still living.

A footnote about the word goumier, by which the Moroccan troops were known: France organized its colonial forces into goums (from Arabic qom  قوم); a 200-;man body of troops; hence goumiers.