A History of the Arab Peoples: Updated Edition

HISTORY OF MOROCCO
The Barbary coast:
A European carve-up
The colonial decadesKingdom of Morocco
Western Sahara
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The Barbary coast: 16th - 20th century
With the decline of the local Berber dynasties in the 15th and 16th centuries, the valuable coastal strip of north Africa (known because of the Berbers as the Barbary coast) attracts the attention of the two most powerful Mediterranean states of the time - Spain in the west, Turkey in the east.
The Spanish-Turkish rivalry lasts for much of the 16th century, but it is gradually won - in a somewhat unorthodox manner - by the Turks. Their successful device is to allow Turkish pirates, or corsairs, to establish themselves along the coast. The territories seized by the corsairs are then given a formal status as protectorates of the Ottoman empire.
The first such pirate establishes himself on the coast of Algeria in 1512. Two others are firmly based in Libya by 1551. Tunisia is briefly taken in 1534 by the most famous corsair of them all, Khair ed-Din (known to the Europeans as Barbarossa). Recovered for Spain in 1535, Tunisia is finally brought under Ottoman control in 1574.
Piracy remains the chief purpose and main source of income of all these Turkish settlements along the Barbary coast. And the depredations of piracy, after three centuries, at last prompt French intervention in Algeria . This, at any rate, is stated by the French at the time to be the cause of their intervention. The reality is somewhat less glorious.
Algiers is occupied by the French in 1830, but it is not until 1847 that the French conquest of Algeria is complete - after prolonged resistance from the Berber hinterland, which has never been effectively controlled by the Turks on the coast.
It is in the European interest to police this entire troublesome Barbary region. Tunisia becomes a French protectorate in 1881, and Morocco (which has maintained a shaky independence, under its own local sultans, since the end of the Marinid dynasty ) follows in 1912. Italy takes Libya from the Turks in 1912. The regions of the Barbary coast thus enter their last colonial phase before independence.
A European carve-up: 1900-1912
The process by which Morocco drifts into the colonial care of France (and of Spain, in the northern regions) provides a notable example of how the European powers jockey for position in Africa.
In 1900 France and Italy make a secret agreement assigning Morocco to France and Libya to Italy. In 1902 a similar arrangement between France and Spain provides for the proposed division between them of Moroccan territory. In 1904 France and Britain make a pact: Britain will allow France freedom of action in Morocco (provided that the coast opposite Gibraltar is not fortified) in return for France's acceptance of Britain's role in Egypt.
Meanwhile, as these arrangements are being made round polished tables, Morocco is still ostensibly an independent country ruled, albeit inefficiently, by its own Alaouite dynasty of sultans (on the throne since capturing Fès in 1666).
The colonial consensus, amicably agreed between France, Italy, Spain and Britain, is rudely interrupted in 1905 when the German emperor William II makes a flamboyant and provocative visit to Tangier, Morocco's most international city. Ostensibly visiting the local community of German merchants, he uses the occasion to emphasize that Morocco's independence must be maintained.
The diplomatic flurry caused by this intervention results in a conference held in Algeciras in 1906. With the active encouragement of the internationally minded US president, Theodore Roosevelt, representatives of the European powers and the USA gather to discuss France's relationship with Morocco.
All the powers except Austria-Hungary side with France rather than Germany. The conference affirms the independence of the sultan of Morocco, but at the same time puts in place international supervision of his affairs with the leading role taken by France. This is t