THE FRANCO REGIME AND THE INDEPENDENCE OF SPANISH
MOROCCO (1945-1956)
A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
in the Faculty of Arts and Science
TRENT UNIVERSITY
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
(c) Copyright by Eduardo Mateo-Carrasco, 2011
History M.A. Graduate Program
October 2011
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ABSTRACT
THE FRANCO REGIME AND THE INDEPENDENCE OF SPANISH MOROCCO
(1945-1956)
Eduardo-Mateo Carrasco
This thesis attempts to explore the Independence of the Spanish protectorate in
Morocco upon the premise of the special relation between the colony and the Franco
regime. Since such a relation preceded the Spanish-Moroccan crisis (December 1955April 1956) and formal granting of independence (April 1956), a re-assessment of the
previous Spanish colonial management needs to be effectuated. The developments
taking place for the period 1946-1955 reveal that the regime, aware of the threat posed
by the articulation of anti-colonial movements, undertook an optimization of its colonial
rule. The regime 's empowerment in Morocco was sustained by a colonial discourse
based on Spain's historical bonds to Muslim North Africa. That connection was
determined by Franco's Africanista identity and his personal colonial theory. The
regime's mismanagement after French Morocco's independence negotiations started in
December 1955 was motivated by the uneven superimposition of Franco's Africanismo
and colonial Morocco's realities during the late 1940s and 1950s.
Keywords: Franco regime, authoritarian regimes, Spanish Morocco, Spanish
Africanismo, Africa's decolonization, late colonial Morocco, colonial discourse.
n
\
$
IV
"The full extent and meaning of the Spanish action in
Morocco
cannot
be properly
understood
if
the
following truth is not realized: Morocco is neither an
occasional
objective
nor
an accident
to
Spain's
historical process. Morocco is much more than that: [it
is] an essential component in Spain's life. At no point
during its history the Spanish interest on Morocco
arises as a result of an adverse political process or
international
designs, but it flows
steadily
through
Spain's history as reflection of the duty to act in Africa,
and requires at all times to be considered both doctrine
and action."
Tomas Garcia Figueras
"Spain does not want to continue the protectorate,
but
to bring it to an end. To this end, [Spain] needs first to
fulfill the commitment of leaving the Moroccans with
the capability to rule themselves with dignity and free
from falling into anarchy, for otherwise [Spain] would
have failed. It is worth noting that Franco is heir to a
historical legacy by which Spain is defined as "mother
of nations "."
Jose Maria Gomez-Salome
"Without Africa, I can scarcely explain myself. "
Francisco Franco
v
Table of Contents
Abstract
ii
Illustration
iv
Quotations
v
Table of Contents
vi
Introduction
1
Chapter I. How the Regime Maintained its Protectorate in Morocco (1945-1955)
17
I.
The Role of the International Context. Franco's Policies of
Optimization (1946-1955)
2i
A. The Policies of Substitution: Morocco as a Vantage Point on
the Rapprochement of Spanish-Arab Relationships
B. From
Colonization
to
Cultural
Action.
22
The
Instrumentalization of Spanish Morocco
II.
jf,
French Morocco and Spanish Morocco. The Development of
Franco's Inverse Mirror Rhetoric
42
A. Antecedents of the Discursive Dependence to French 42
Morocco
B. The Exploitation of the Binary French Morocco-Spanish
Morocco
47
Chapter II. Crisis and Independence. The Franco Regime Before the Loss of
Spanish Morocco (1955-1956)
I.
73
A Sustainable Success? Signs of Exhaustion in the Regime's
Empowerment in Morocco
77
VI
II.
Franco Exposed. The Regime and the Spread of the Moroccan
Crisis (November 1955-April 1956)
97
A. The Juridical Manacle. The 1912 Treaty and the Nature of
Spain's Colonial Status in Morocco
B. The Franco-Garcia Valino Divergence (December 1955)
™
103
C. Negotiating Independence. From Policies of Optimization to
Policies of Delusion (December 1955-April 1956)
i io
D. A Post-colonial Rhetoric for an Independent Morocco
139
Conclusions
144
Bibliography
149
Appendix (1): Chronology
157
Appendix (2): Dramatis Personae
158
VII
Introduction
O
n April 7'
1956 Francisco Franco, Spain's dictator, granted
independence to the Spanish protectorate in Morocco after more than
forty years of colonial occupation Spanish Morocco had been one of the few colonial
enclaves administered by Spain on the African continent After the loss of the last
possessions of Cuba and the Philippines in 1898, Spanish aspirations in Northern Africa
had synthesized the core of the Africanista discourse - the Spanish equivalent to
Europe's interest groups in Africa's colonization Despite its past interventionist policy
in Northern Morocco since late nineteenth century, and specially from 1908, the
participation of Spain in Africa's partition had been for the most part obviated by the
leading European powers ' Geopolitical considerations to maintain a balance of power
in Northern Africa had moved France, Great Britain and Germany to finally reward
Spain's colonial ambitions with an area of influence in Northern Morocco
Spain had gained definitive control over Northern Morocco as a result of the 1912
French-Spanish Treaty, in which France agreed to put under Spain's tutelage a portion
of its recently acquired protectorate At the time, the Spanish protectorate encompassed
less than 20 000 km (approximately a twentieth of the French zone's total extension)
and a population of some 760 000 inhabitants, many of whom enjoyed de facto
1
Victor Morales Lezcano El colomalismo hispano-frances en Marruecos (1898-1927) (Granada
Universidad de Granada) pp 35-65
Sebastian Balfour Deadly Embrace Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (New York Oxford
University Press, 2002) pp 3-6
2
autonomy from the Sultan's authority.3 In theory, the colonial competences of Spain
were subjected to those of Rabat. According to the 1912 Franco-Moroccan Treaty of
Fez, the European takeover was meant to restore the Sultan's authority over the
Sherifian Empire. To this end, the Sultan was represented in Tetouan (capital of the
Spanish protectorate) via his direct representative, the Caliph. In practice, Spain exerted
its colonial rule with virtual independence from both France's and the Caliphate's
designs.
The pacification of Spanish Morocco was not complete until 1927. During the 1920s
Rif wars, those fighting in the Ejercito de Africa (Spain's colonial military corps)
developed a strong sense of commitment to the colonial undertaking. In addition, they
also cultivated a particular interpretation of the war against the insurgency as an analogy
of the strife that had characterized Spain's political life since late nineteenth century.
The metropolis' general disregard and opposition to the colonial adventure fostered the
military's sense of isolation and nurtured the mythos of the colonial struggle as a
metaphor for the need to redeem Spain of the ghosts of social fragmentation and
political alienation. The country's Africanista mindset came increasingly identified
with the colonial military identity and intertwined with a martially-focused vision of
Spanish politics.
Francisco Franco was one of those soldiers whose military experience redefined
Africanismo and conferred it a strong political significance. As Franco himself pointed
3
Victor Morales Lezcano Espaha y el norte de Africa: el protectorado espahol en Marruecos (1912-1956)
(Madrid: UNED, 1986) pp. 169-70.
4
Balfour Ibid., pp. 9-30.
3
out years later "there [in Morocco] was born the possibility of rescuing a great Spain.
There was founded the idea that redeems us today." When Franco gained control of
Spain and established an authoritarian regime in 1939, those views of the colonial and
national enterprise as the same also became part of the country's ideological apparatus.
Spanish Morocco's late colonial management until independence in 1956 thus was to
reflect the complex and unique relation between the colony and the dictator.
Morocco, like most European colonies in Africa (and elsewhere) had experienced a
rapid transformation following the end of the Second World War. By the late 1940s,
nationalist sentiments were taking root among the local elites; in turn, that political
awakening led to the articulation of anti-colonial stances that sought an end to European
occupation. Though an otherwise autonomous colony, the Spanish protectorate was
exposed to the influence of anti-colonial discourses to the same degree as other colonies
in North Africa. However, in the case of the Franco regime, the prospect of losing
Spanish Morocco posed a danger that transcended the scope of colonial affairs.
This research analyzes the colonial responses of the Franco regime during Spanish
Morocco's late colonial period (1946-1956). The Spanish protectorate's independence
process technically began in November-December 1955, when France announced the
restitution of Mohammed V (deposed in 1953) and the opening of independenceoriented negotiations with the Moroccan representatives. According to a strict
interpretation, the independence process coincided with the duration of the Spanish-
5
Paul Preston Franco. A Biography (London: Harper Collins, 1993) p. 16.
4
Moroccan crisis and lasted approximately five months. In spite of this, the road to
independence for Spanish Morocco had been paved years earlier, at least since 1946,
when the first indicators of anti-colonial sentiments were displayed. In addition, the
interdependence regime (i.e. neocolonialism) established after formal independence in
1956 could also be taken as justification against a strict fact-based measurement of the
independence process' duration. Establishing a periodization for Spanish Morocco's
independence thus involves defining the analytical criterion that better satisfies the
research's objectives.
This research will approach the regime's colonial responses from the premise of
Franco's self-realization of the need to counterbalance a potential colonial loss in
Morocco. That threat was represented by the gradual empowerment of anti-colonial
identities in Morocco. Therefore, albeit the Spanish-Moroccan crisis that preceded
independence did not break out until November-December 1955, its possibility had
been already accounted for. Although one of the research's goals is determining the
degree of acceptance that the idea of independence received by Franco, the intensity and
range of initiatives launched since 1946 presupposes a cause-and-effect relation
between Morocco's decolonization momentum and the regime's late colonial policy.
This research will ascribe Spanish Morocco's independence process to the period 19461956.
In order to study the regime's actions in Morocco, the connection between the colony
and the Franco regime must be reassessed. In doing so however, the a priori relation
5
between the research's key topics (the Franco regime, on the one hand, and Morocco's
decolonization process, on the other) may change. Certainly, the meaning of colonial
Morocco in Franco's political imagery introduces a distinct pattern in the analysis of the
dynamics between colonial developments and metropolitan responses. According to
this, the regime's determination to avoid a potential colonial loss was driven, in addition
to geopolitical considerations, by national and doctrine-based rationales. The role of
colonial possessions as a source of metropolitan intra-state legitimacy were, to a certain
extent, exposed by the turmoil generated by the 1954 Algerian crisis in France's
political realm.6 However, the dictatorial character and historical context of the
Francoist regime added some particularities that rule out the approach given to other
cases of European (mostly French) decolonization during the 1950s.
The value of Spanish Morocco to Francoist Spain answered to a twofold rationale. In
the first place, the regime's international status during the late 1940s and the beginning
of Morocco's anti-colonialism was one in search of sources of legitimacy. The 1946
U.N. Resolution condemning the Franco regime conferred to the colony the character of
an asset to break the dictatorship's international isolation. Unlike other European
powers, Spanish Morocco did not offer just international prestige or geostrategic
advantages, but a channel through which restore the regime's prestige at the
See Todd Shepard The Invention of Decolonization. The Algerian War and the Remaking of France
(London: Cornell University Press, 2006).
7
Florentino Portero Franco aislado. La cuestion espahola (1945-1950) (Madrid: Aguilar, 1989) pp. 20617.
6
international level
The lnstrumentahzation of the Spanish protectorate was thus
motivated by state-oriented interests, rather than strictly speaking colonial ones, in the
second place, the same connection linking the dictatorship's establishment with Spanish
Morocco conferred the latter an additional value for legitimizing the regime A potential
colonial loss by late 1940s implied also the loss of a powerful source sustaining the
Africanista mythos, which itself gave meaning to the regime's existence
Since Spanish Morocco meant more to the Franco regime as a source of national
legitimacy than it did at a geopolitical level, the threat of its hypothetical independence
needs to be re-evaluated The late 1940s circumstances surrounding Franco s Spain
certainly suggest a predominance of internal, national considerations over geostrategic
ones Because this symbiosis between the colonial and national scopes ran deeply into
the regime's very raison d etre, the internationally-taken decolonization dimension of
the independence process has to be subjected to a national rationale Therefore, the
research will be oriented to explain the regime s colonial management rather than
Spanish Morocco's decolonization per se In other words, the research will incorporate
as its mam focus of analysis the study of decolonization dynamics within the analytical
framework of the management of an authoritarian regime
The Africanista factor
encourages a hybrid research line that, though establishing parallelisms with France's
8
M a Dolores Algora Weber Las relaciones hispano-arabes durante el regimen de Franco La ruptura del
aislamiento internacional (1946-1950) (Madrid Mmisteno de Asuntos Extenores, 1995) p 66
9
In Portugal, fellow Iberian dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar had a far more defiant attitude against
African nationalism than Franco Salazar chose war and the conflict both economically ruined Portugal
and caused the demise of the New State Felipe Ribeiro de Meneses Salazar A Political Biography (New
York Enigma, 2009) pp 451-543 For an overview of the evolution of the New State's colonial policy see
Steward Lloyd Jones and Antonio Costa Pinto (eds ) The Last Empire Thirty Years of Portuguese
Decolonization (Bristol and Portland Intellect, 2003)
7
performance in French Morocco's decolonization, acknowledges the dictatorshipMorocco connection as pivotal in explaining the specifics of the Spanish zone's
developments for the period 1946-1956
The term decolonization was first systemically used in history-writing by C E
Camngton in his 1962 article Decolonization the Last Stages According to Camngton,
the idea of decolonisation had been coined by the French apropos of France's colonial
debacle in South East Asia and later on in North Africa The author roughly defined it
as a simple "transfer of powers" between the metropolitan powers and the colonial
agencies, whether the latter were "small vociferous group[s] of politically selfconscious persons" or "more widely based political organization^]"
Camngton
addressed post-independence relations between former colonial power and ex-colony,
by stating that "the flesh and the limbs of empire have gone but the articulation of the
nervous system survives, and is maintained at the expense of the [metropolis']
taxpayer"11 A minor contribution sharing similar views, though somehow relevant
given the scope of the research, was the 1967 book La decolomzacion, un criterio
hispdnico by Spanish Africanista writer Jose Ma Cordero Torres 12 Interpretations of
this sort (what John Flint defined the liberal nationalist theory for the British case)
represent the first histonographical approach to Africa's decolonization process l
10
C E Camngton "Decolonization the Last Stages" in International Affairs (Royal Institute of
International Affairs, 1944-) 38/1 (Jan , 1962) pp 29-40
Camngton, Ibid
Jose M a Cordero Torres La descolomzacion Un criterio hispanico (Madrid Instituto de Estudios
Pohticos, 1967)
13
John Flint Planned "Decolonization and Its Failure in British Africa" in African Affairs 82/328 (Jul,
1983) pp 389-411
8
From the 1960s, pan-Afncanist writers like Kwame Nkrumah, Walter Rodney or Franz
Fanon started to apply the term neo-coloniahsm to define the continuation of
metropolitan domination that followed Africa's decolonization process
According to
Nkrumah, under the pretext of providing aid for the former colonies development,
countries following a neocolomal agenda were introducing "innumerable ways to
accomplish objectives formerly achieved by naked colonialism"15 As Fanon (whose
political thought was much influenced by the events of the Algerian war of
independence) pointed out under neocolomal designs "the apotheosis of [former
colonies'] independence [was] transformed into a curse of independence, and the
colonial power through its immense resources of coercion [condemned] the young
nationfs] to regression "
The scholarship of decolonization has been traditionally divided into two main fields of
study, the already-mentioned metropolitan transfer of power perspective and the
nationalist one In each case, the decolonization phenomenon has been approached
following either imperially-driven or nationalist rationales 1V From the late 1970s, the
practitioners of the post-colonial theory started to address the study of decolonization
(and colonialism as a whole) by prioritizing the discursive dimension of the colonial
edifice Post-colonial theory has been subjected to a considerable deal of criticism due
See Walter Rodney How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington Howard University Press,
1972), Franz Fanon Toward the African Revolution (Political Essays) (New York Groove Press, 1967),
Kwame Nkrumah Africa Must Unite (New York International Publishers, 1970)
Kwame Nkrumah Neo-coloniahsm, The Last Stage of Imperialism (London Thomas Nelson & Sons,
1965)p 268
16
Fanon The Wretched of the Earth (New York Grove Press, 1963) p 97
Dane Kennedy "Imperial History and Post-Colonial Theory" in The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History 24/3 (September, 1996) pp 345-63
9
to its eventual theoretical cul-de-sac More recent scholarship has begun to incorporate
some of the premises of post-colonial theory in order to reach a more balanced (though
still historically-feasible) understanding of the decolonization phenomenon with a
greater emphasis on local and/or regional particularities 18
A number of works have covered the topic of Spanish Morocco s independence, mostly
in Spanish In most cases, the independence process has been studied rather tangentially
within wider monographs dedicated to the Spanish protectorate ' 9 Many of those first
works published between the 1940s and the 1970s belonged to renowned Africanista
writers As such, they often offered a slanted analysis that mirrored the regime's
colonial gospel during and after independence Among them it is worth mentioning the
works of Tomas Garcia Figueras, who Figueras had held posts of the utmost importance
in the colonial administration during Morocco s last years as a Spanish possession, and
Jose Md Cordero Torres 20 Due to their undeniable propagandists nature, those works
will be approached as examples of the regime's Africanista discourse
See Martin Shipway Decolonization and Its Impact A Comparative Approach to the End of the
Colonial Empires (Massachusetts Blackwell, 2008) and "Madagascar on the eve of insurrection, 1944-47
The impasse of a liberal colonial policy" in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 24/1
(January, 1996) pp 72-100, Richard C Crook "Decolonization, the Colonial State, and Chieftaincy in the
Gold Coast" in African Affairs 85/ 338 (1986) pp 75-105, Matthew Connelly "Rethinking the Cold War
and Decolonization The Grand Strategy of the Algerian War for Independence" in International Journal
of Middle East Studies 33/2 (2001) pp 221-245
19
It has to be noticed that the protectorate, or rather its 1920s military episodes, was subjected to an
extensive treatment by military history before and under the Franco regime Given the significance of
the African wars in Spam s twentieth century military mythos, the works on Spanish Morocco s
campaigns constitute a sub genre in their own Franco himself published an account of the colonial
conflict Francisco Franco Bahamonde Diano de una bandera (Madrid Pueyo, 1922)
20
The combined work on the Spanish protectorate (or specific aspects of it) by these two authors is
quite impressive See Tomas Garcia Figueras Africa en la accion espahola (Madrid Instituto de Estudios
Africa nos, 1949), La accion economica de Espaha en Marruecos (smtesis de sus fundamentos y su
evolucion) (Madrid Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 1955), Ibid and Juan L Fernandez-Llebrez La zona
espahola del protectorado de Marruecos (Madrid Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 1955), Espaha y su
10
Historian Victor Morales Lezcano can be considered the Spanish scholar with the most
impressive body of work on Spanish Morocco Among his many books on the subject,
El final del Protectorado hispano-frances en Marruecos
marroqui
(1945-1962)
El desafio del
nacionalismo
specifically focuses on the regime's management of the
independence process 21 Among other things, this work already identifies the central
role of Franco-Spanish intra-colomal dynamics of power in the ultimate collapse of
Franco's rule in Morocco All things considered, the author makes only superficial
connections between Franco's actions for the period 1946-1956 and his Africanista
identity
Since the 1990s, a new generation of scholars has contributed to the production of
works dealing with Spanish Morocco or specific aspects of it Whether conducted from
anthropological standpoints, political-geographical ones, or simply attempting to
produce more updated monographs on the subject, the study of Spanish Morocco had
received a good deal of attention in recent years 22 Ybarra Enriquez's book Espanay
la
protectorado en Marruecos (1912 1956) (Madrid Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 1957) Jose Maria
Cordero Torres Alta Comisana de Espaha en Marruecos accion de Espaha en Marruecos la obra
material (Madrid Instituto Geografico y Catastral, 1946), El africanismo en la cultura hispanica
contemporanea (Madrid Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1949), Politico colonial (Madrid Ediciones Cultura
Hispanica, 1953), La descolomzacion Un criterio hispanico (Madrid Instituto de Estudios Pohticos,
1967)
21
See Victor Morales Lezcano El colomalismo hispano-frances en Marruecos (1898 1927) (Granada
Universidad de Granada, 2002), Dialogos riberehos conversaciones con miembros de la elite marroqui
(Madrid UNED, 2002), Espaha en Marruecos El fracaso de un sueho co/on/o/(Madrid UNED, 1997)
22
In his several books, Josep Lluis Mateo Dieste has examined the ideological foundations of the Spanish
colonial project and contrasted them with Spain s administrative performance See La "hermandad"
hispano-marroqui Politico y religion bajo el Protectorado espahol en Marruecos [1912 1956] (Barcelona
Bellaterra, 2002) and "El mterventor y el Caid La politica colonial espahola frente a la justicia marroqui
durante el protectorado de Marruecos (1912-1956)" in Hispama Revista espahola de Histona 67/226
(May-August 2007), pp 643-70 Two books from the above-mentioned author and Susan MartmMarquez have explored the elaboration of images of "otherness" about the Moroccan subject See El
"moro" entre los primitivos El caso del protectorado espahol en Marruecos (Barcelona Fundacion La
11
descolomzacwn del Magreb La rivahdad hispano-francesa (1951-1961) is, by its focus
of analysis, source usage and chronological criterion, the work that more closely
resembles the interests of this research 23 Its examination of the regime's responses
apropos of changes in the 1950s colonial context is praiseworthy and, if not overtly
stated, suggests many interesting associations between Spain's late colonial action and
the regime's Africanista background and power dynamics
Despite the scholarly interest in Spanish Morocco, the regime's performance vis-d-vis
independence has not yet received the consistent and individualized treatment of other
sub-topics Within the scope of North Africa's decolonization this gap has been even
more manifest. In the study of colonial Morocco, the significance and centrality of
French Morocco's crisis and independence condemns the study of the Spanish zone to a
perpetual secondary position One of the most recent works on Morocco under
European domination, Pennell's Morocco since 1830 A History, is a case in point 24
Due to the historical disparity between protectorates, the inclusion of Spanish Morocco
in works on colonial (namely, French) Morocco does not seem to encourage more
research on the subject, but rather the opposite
Caixa, 1997) and Susan Martm-Marquez Disorientations Spanish Colonialism in Africa and the
Performance of Identity (London Yale University Press, 2008) There have been several works trying to
offer a revisionist overview of the Spanish protectorate See Ramon Salas Larrazabal El protectorado de
Espaha en Marruecos (Madrid Mapfre, 1992) and J Nogue and J L Villanova (eds) Espaha en
Marruecos (1912-1956) Discursos geograficos e intervencion territorial (Lleida Editorial Milenio, 1999)
The publication of a variegated range of works focusing on specific (and more obscure) aspects of
Spam s colonization in Morocco evinces the relative wide scope available for history-writing See Jose
Luis Villanova Valero Los mterventores La piedra angular del Protectorado espahol en Marruecos
(Barcelona Bellaterra, 2006), Susana Sueiro Seonae Espaha en el Mediterraneo Primo de Rivera y la
«Cuestion Marroqui», 1923-1930 (Madrid UNED, 1993), F Rodriguez Mediano and Helena de Felipe
(eds ) El protectorado espahol en Marruecos Gestion colonial e identidades (Madrid CSIC, 2002)
23
M 5 Concepcion Ybarra Ennquez de la Orden Espaha y la descolomzacion del Magreb Rivahdad
Hispano-Francesa en Marruecos (1951-1961) (Madrid UNED, 1998)
24
C R Pennell Morocco since 1830 A History (New York New York University Press, 2000)
12
Since the end of the dictatorship in 1975 the Franco regime, on the other hand, has been
one of the most researched topics in the study of contemporary Spain Many of the most
relevant works in this respect have been produced by British and American historians,
among who the study of Francoism has proved prolific The historiography dedicated to
Franco himself, his political ideology or his performance as dictator of Spain is
constantly increasing and incorporates a wide range of political standpoints Given the
strong political significance of the dictatorship, in and outside Spain, the study of
Francoism has given rise to disparate and polarized stances, oscillating between moral
condemnation and political apology25 A good example of current political stances
determining opposed interpretations can be found in the works of Paul Preston and
Stanley Payne about the political events preceding Franco's rise and the beginning of
the Spanish civil war 26
The categorization of Francoism has produced several interpretations due to changes in
the regime's general political orientation throughout its nearly forty years of life
Stanley Payne, in his seminal study on fascism, offers the most suitable political profile
For works on the Franco regime see Max Gallo Spain under Franco A History (New York Allen and
Unwm, 1973), Antonio Lopez Pina and Eduardo L Aranguren La cultura politico de la Espaha de Franco
(Madrid Taurus, 1976), Ramon Garriga La Espaha de Franco (Madrid G del Toro Editor), 1976), Luis
Suarez Fernandez Francisco Franco y su tiempo (Madrid Fundacion Nacional Francisco Franco, 1984),
Juan Pablo Fusi Franco Autontansmo y poder personal (Madrid El Pais, 1985), Stanley Payne The Franco
Regime, 1936-1979 (Wisconsin University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), Javier Tusell La dictadura de
Franco (Madrid Alianza, 1988), Tusell, Sueiro, Mann and Casanova (eds ) El regimen de Franco (19361975) (Madrid UNED, 1993), Paul Preston Franco A Biography (London Harper Collins, 1993), Francisco
Sevillano Calero Ecos de papel La opinion de los espaholes en la epoca de Franco (Madrid Bibhoteca
Nueva, 2000), Antonio Cazorla-Sanchez Las politicas de la victoria la consolidacion del nuevo Estado
Franquista (1938-1953) (Madrid Marcial Pons, 2000), Nigel Townson (ed ) Espaha en cambio el
Segundofranquismo, 1959-1975 (Madrid Siglo XXI, 2009)
Paul Preston La destruccion de la democracia en Espaha reforma, reaccion y revolucion en la Segunda
Republica (Barcelona Gnjalbo, 2001) and Stanley Payne El colapso de la Republica los ongenes de la
Guerra Civil (1933 1936) (Barcelona Planeta, 2005)
13
of the Franco regime as a "syncretic dictatorship characterized by a semi-pluralistic
national coalition of political interests " In addition, its potential categorization within
the wider scope of post-war European dictatorial regimes has made possible the
comparative analysis of Francoism's political and ideological traits as they relate to
other cases 28
The historiography focused on the ideology of Franco and his regime is varied, though
also subjected to the same afore-mentioned political interpretations 29 Among those it is
worth underlining the approach of J C Losada Malvarez's book Ideologia del ejercito
franquista, which examines the military traits in the regime's ideology This work
represents a valuable and somewhat unique guide to assess Franco's policies from the
premise of his military background and his Africanista identity30
The analysis of Franco's colonial performance before a potential colonial loss will be
effectuated paying special attention to its discursive nature In this fashion, this thesis
Stanley Payne (ed ) A History of Fascism, 1914- 45 (London UCL Press, 1995) pp 468 70 For works
trying to offer a political categorization of Francoism see Martin Blmkhorn "Conservatism,
traditionalism and fascism in Spam, 1898 1937" in Blmkhorn (ed ) Fascists and Conservatives The radical
right and the establishment in twentieth-century Europe (London Unwm Hyman, 1990), Paul Preston
The politics of Revenge Fascism and the Military in twentieth-century Spam (London Unwm Hyman,
1995), Sheelagh M Ellwood "Falange Espahola, 1933-9 From Fascism to Francoism" in Blmkhorn, M
(ed ) Spain in Conflict 1931 - 1939 Democracy and its Enemies (London Cambridge University Press,
1986), Stanley Payne Fascism, Comparison and definition (Wisconsin Wisconsin University Press, 1980)
Antonio Costa Pinto "Elites, Single Parties and Political Decision-making in Fascist-Era Dictatorships" in
Contemporary European History 2/3 (2002) pp 429-54
See Juan Lmz Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (London Lynne Rienner, 2000), Borejsza, and
Ziemer (eds ) Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes in Europe Legacies and Lessons from the
Twentieth Century (Oxford Berghahn Books, 2006)
For works on Franco s ideology see Manuel Ramirez Jimenez Espaha 1939-1975 (regimen politico e
ideologia) (Barcelona Guadarrama, 1978), Raul Morodo Los ongenes ideologicos del franquismo Accion
Espahola (Madrid Ahanza, 1985), Guy Hernet Los catolicos en la Espaha franquista (Madrid CSIC, 1985),
Stanley Payne Franco y Jose Antonio (Barcelona Planeta, 1997), Jose Andres Gallego tFascismo o Estado
Catolico7 Ideologia, religion y censura en la Espaha de Franco (Madrid Encuentro, 1997)
30
Juan Carlos Losada Malvarez Ideologia del Ejercito Franquista, 1936-1951 (Madrid Istmo, 1990)
14
adopts a methodology borrowed from new cultural historians of authoritarian and
totalitarian regimes such as Paul Corner, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Philip Morgan, Angela
Cenarro, Antonio Cazorla-Sanchez or Mary Fulbrook ' This entails avoiding
theoretical formulations that approach power dynamics within authoritarian and/or
totalitarian regimes as unidirectional and monochromatic In lieu of this, this research
advocates for a more multidimensional understanding of power (1 e , the binary
oppressor-oppressed) as monopolized but not dominated by the ruling agencies
The following research will combine the study of Africa s decolonization within the
analytical framework of the Franco regime s discursive and political performance The
examination of the Francoist management of Spanish Morocco's independence adds an
interesting and unexplored dimension to the general colonizer-colonized interactions
apropos of decolonization While it is not the purpose of this thesis to categorize the
regime's colonial management as unique, certain aspects within it can be considered as
distinctive from most European experiences in Africa's decolonization, the previous
symbolism and centrality of Morocco in both Franco's ideology and Spain's national
realities during the first half of the twentieth century, the particular international
circumstances surrounding the regime at the time of the first signs of anti-colonial
31
Philip Morgan "The Years of Consent7 Popular attitudes and forms of resistance to Fascism in Italy,
1925-1940" in T Kirk, and A McEIhgott (eds ) Opposing Fascism Community, Authority and Resistance
in Europe (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1999), Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed ) Stalinism New
Directions (New York Routledge, 2000), Angela Cenarro "Violence, Surveillance and Denuntiation
Social Cleavage in the Spanish Civil War and Francoism, 1936 1950" in Roodemburg (ed ) Control in
Europe Vol 2 (Ohio Ohio State University, 2004), Paul Corner (ed ) Popular Opinion in Totalitarian
Regimes Fascism, Nazism, Communism (New York Oxford University Press, 2009), Antonio CazorlaSanchez Fear and Progress Ordinary Lives in Franco s Spam, 1939-1975 (Oxford Willey-Blackwell, 2009),
Mary Fulbrook The People s State East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (London Yale University
Press, 2005),
15
discourses in the colony, the nature of Spain s colonial status in Morocco (as compared
to France s) as an agency for colonial empowerment but also as a structural
disadvantage to the regime s colonial survival These and other factors outline the
decolonization experience in Spanish Morocco as a case study presenting consistent
particularities
The colony's role in the rise and establishment of the dictatorship and the development
of Franco's political thought have been often stressed by modern historiography
According to those same premises the possibility of Spanish Morocco's independence
by the late 1940s would have posed a considerable threat to the regime The acceptance
of Morocco's significance and symbolism in Francoism's initial stages presupposes that
the colony remained an ideological asset thereafter The value that Spanish Morocco's
possession represented to Franco and his regime is the elemental premise from which
this thesis will be developed Upon completion, this research seeks the validation of
several specific points
1 That the optimization of Spanish Morocco's possession was determined by a
twofold rationale in the first place, by the need to counterbalance the
regime's international predicament - 1 e the isolation imposed by the U N in
1946, simultaneously, an amelioration of the regime s standing was designed
to tackle the empowerment of anti-colonial stances and ultimately, a
potential colonial loss
32
Balfour, Ibid , pp 83 123, Preston, Ibid , (1993) pp 1-69, M a Dolores Algora Weber Las relaciones
hispano-arabes durante el regimen de Franco La ruptura del aislamiento internaaonal (1946-1950)
(Madrid MAE, 1995) pp 269 301
16
2. That the optimization of Franco's rule in Morocco was sustained upon the
rhetorical and political exploitation of a series of assumptions that, though
benefiting from current intra-colonial dynamics (i.e. the Franco-Moroccan
crisis) were ultimately drawn from Franco's Africanista identity.
3. That the regime's colonial collapse in 1955 was, though triggered by
France's policies, intensified by the continuous application of the same
principles that sustained optimization. The regime's mismanagements during
the Spanish-Moroccan crisis (December 1955-April 1956) resulted from the
constant reenactment of Africanista rationales that had become increasingly
dissociated from the 1950s colonial realities.
By way of conclusion, this thesis will attempt to present Franco's responses vis-a-vis
Spanish Morocco's independence as a reflection of his wider political thought as it was
systemically applied in Spain. In this respect, the research will point out several
recurrent elements as a means of sketching the essential lines of Franco's colonial
theory. Ultimately, it is the hope of this thesis to provide a better ground, or at least
preliminary steps, for the study of late colonialism and decolonization dynamics under
authoritarian metropolitan regimes.
17
Chapter I. How the regime maintained its
Protectorate in Morocco (1945-1955)
W
hen the Second World War came to an end and the victors gathered to
decide the new world order, the presence of Francoist Spain was
barely missed The Allies' perception of Spam as an authoritarian regime ideologically
in tune with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy drew a grim picture for both the
dictatorship's future international status and its very survival
Franco's own
perseverance in maintaining a strict economic, political and, more notably, ideological
hold of Spain's realities had increasingly come into conflict with the predominant postwar trends in political theory In the last instance, this seemingly incompatibility would
be sanctioned by the 1946 U N General Assembly's Resolution 39/1, which explicitly
condemned the Francoist regime and recommended its confinement from international
decision-making forums 33 In this fashion, Franco lost Spain's share in participating in
the post-war world order In spite of that, the Resolution spared the regime's continuity
as ruler of Spain though delimited by national boundaries Those national boundaries, it
has to be noticed, extended to the Spanish colonial possessions in North Africa - namely
the Protectorate in Morocco, Sidi Ifm, Western Sahara, and Equatorial Guinea
The final U N diplomatic break-up with Franco s Spam, however, was far from representing the entire
scope of international views about the regime Even those countries that led Spam s proscription
process like United Kingdom or the United States underwent through no little internal debate regarding
the position to adopt towards Franco See, for example, the section dedicated to Foreign Relations in
Tusell, et al (eds ) El Regimen de Franco (1936 1975) Congreso Internaaonal Madrid, Mayo 1993, V II
(Madrid UNED, 1993) Another contribution can be found in Sebastian Balfour and Paul Preston (eds )
Spam and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century (London Routledge, 1999) For a more detailed
analysis of the role played by the "Spanish question" in the post-war Allies negotiations consult Jill
Edwards Anglo-American relations and the Franco Question, 1945-1955 (Oxford Claredon Press, 1999)
18
The fact that Spain was politically banned from participating in the post-war
international compact, however, did not shield its overseas territories against the
influence of global ideological currents. Franco's Spain was still a minor colonial power
in North Africa and as such, was vulnerable to the spread and empowerment of anticolonial discourses and movements. In spite of the regime's zeal in curbing external
influences, the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco was exposed to the anti-colonial
rhetoric and would eventually articulate a nationalist anti-colonial response.
Although Spanish Morocco was (but for the exception of Western Sahara) the only nonFrench colonial possession in the Maghreb, the bonds with its neighbors due to tradition
and proximity prevailed despite colonial provenances. In this context, the awakening of
Moroccan nationalism in the Spanish zone echoed a broader phenomenon taking place
throughout colonial Africa: the crystallization, during the late 1940s and 1950s, of
dynamic anti-colonial stances.
While the preconditions for the galvanization of a steady nationalist movement differed
in nature from those in other French colonies, it was the protectorate's specific setting
that provided the framework for the introduction of anti-colonial, nationalist ideas. The
existence of two protectorates upon the core principle of Morocco's territorial integrity
conferred a great degree of interaction between subjects from each zone, for there was
the perception of a single national identity. Henceforth, while each protectorate was
administered with virtual independence from the other, the Moroccan people remained
aware of the developments taking place in the sister colony. France's colonial grip in
Morocco had begun to deteriorate from the 1930s due to nationalist empowerment. By
the time the war was over, France faced an organized nationalist opposition determined
to terminate the colonial occupation. The cultural symbiosis between the two
19
protectorates played a pivotal role in the decolonization of Spanish Morocco. For this
reason, the study of the Francoist management of the Moroccan independence process
has to be circumscribed to the comparative analysis of the French case.
The Francoist dictatorship might not have been able to insulate Spanish Morocco from
anti-colonial doctrines, but it certainly had the authority to tackle its development in the
colony. The international action exerted by the Arab League countries in publicizing
and gaining support for the question of North Africa's anti-colonial struggle however,
was beyond Franco's reach. Unlike other European colonial powers, Spain had no
representation to defend its interests at the U.N. forums against the advocates of anticolonialism in North Africa. This handicap highlights the fact that Franco's standing in
Morocco was, comparatively speaking, weaker than that of France.
In order to offer an accurate insight of the regime's hold in Spanish Morocco for the
period 1946-1955, the following analysis has been conducted according to a
contextually-driven compartmentalization: on the one hand, the internationalization of
the Moroccan question by extra-colonial agencies and its subsequent optimization by
the Franco regime; on the other hand, the interaction between the French and the
Spanish rhetorical models around the colony's development dynamics. The
implementation of this categorization has also been selected to fulfill a sequential
criterion. Thus, the ascendancy of those two distinct contextual rationales in the
optimization of the regime's position in Morocco is further stressed by the periodization
of the period 1946-1955. According to this analytical model, the first stage, defined by
the international context, comprises the period 1946-1953 while the second stage,
20
originated in an internal (this is, colonial)34 background, stands for the period 19531955.
34
For reasons already mentioned and that will be further developed in Section II of Chapter II and
Section I of Chapter III, the Moroccan colonial setting favors an approach that differentiates the French
and Spanish protectorates solely based on a jurisdictional criterion Therefore, any discursive
elaboration on Spanish Morocco produced as a reaction/reply to stimuli from the French zone (even if
the latter corresponded to France s jurisdiction in its protectorate) will be considered of an intrastate this is, plainly Moroccan - nature
21
I. The Role of the International Context. Franco's Policies of
Optimization (1946-1955)
There exists a general consensus among scholars of Francoism in characterizing the
period of international isolation (1945-1953) as a dire stage within the dictatorship's
tenure The U N diplomatic siege greatly diminished Spain's international participation,
even by the standards of neutrality adopted during World War II 35 Due to this
confinement, the dictatorship's maneuverability in defending its interests beyond its
national boundaries almost ceased At the time, one of the fellow European nations'
chief concerns was the momentum of anti-colonial movements The supranational
dimension of the anti-colonial struggle and the resultant identification of mutual
problems and shared interests (by colonial nations and nationalist movements alike)
made decolonization transcend the scope of local politics 36 In the case of Franco's
Spain, the road to independence for Spanish Morocco coincided almost entirely with the
years of international isolation It is precisely in the interconnection of those two
disparate processes where the Francoist colonial management for the period 1946-1953
gains full significance
The following section has been developed in order to re-assess the role of the post-war
international context as the leading external agency behind the empowerment of the
dictatorship's standing in Spanish Morocco until August 1953
35
The official status of the dictatorship for the duration of the war was of neutrality first, non
belligerency since June 1940 and once more neutrality in October 1943 Julio Gil Pecharroman La politico
exterior del Franquismo (1939-1975) Entre Hendaya y El Aiun (Barcelona Flor del Viento, 2008) pp 434
"Colonial policy, like other aspects of national life, has everywhere been affected by the chastening
experiences of the immediate past [the Second World War]" (my italics) J E Shuckburgh "Untitled" in
International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1944-) 24/2 (Apr, 1948) pp 266-7 At the
end of the war colonial administration was considered, by and large, a matter of home politics within
the jurisdiction of the colonial powers
22
A. The Policies of Substitution: Morocco as a Vantage Point on the
Rapprochement of Spanish-Arab Relations
The implementation of the U N Resolution 39/1 virtually ostracized Franco s Spain
from world forums 37 The impact of the international inquisition would strengthen even
further the regime's orientation for immobilist stances Keeping a tight hold upon
Spain's political, economic and cultural life was not a diplomatic maneuver though, but
the extrapolation of the regime s ideological profile into a wider context38 Despite
Franco's pertinacity, the inclusion of Spain in the international organs was still a
desirable goal with obvious potential benefits Indeed, aside from Franco's estimations
about an impending U S diplomatic rapprochement, as long as the U N condemnation
remained the dictatorship would lack any international credibility
The driving force behind Franco's foreign action during the late 1940s and first 1950s
was thus an internal rationale the international consolidation of the regime Prior to the
country's inclusion in the U N organs, Franco had to first secure the repeal of the 1946
Resolution, in order to do so, Spam had to work to gather the support of enough U N
members as to guarantee a that they would vote against the maintaining of the
international sanctions The impossibility of obtaining such support from the West
impelled the launching of the so-called policies of substitution or bridge policies
On December 12 and after months of deliberation deciding what course of action to adopt regarding
the "Spanish question", the Resolution 39/1 was passed with 39 votes for, 6 against and 13 abstentions
Among those 13 members that abstained, were the Arab countries of Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Turkey, Afghanistan, and Syria Florentmo Portero Franco aislado La cuestion espahola (1945-1950)
(Madrid Aguilar, 1989) pp 206-17
38
Jarque Inaguez has identified in the regime s negative to relinquish its hard line traits the conviction
(also shared by some U S diplomats at the time) that the Cold War geostrategic imperatives would
prevail over ideological considerations Arturo Jarque Iniguez "Queremos esas bases" El acercamiento
de Estados Umdos a la Espaha de Franco (Madrid Universidad de Alcala, 1998) pp 205-60 The regime s
unwillingness to adopt formal changes at the request of the U S diplomacy can also be approached
from ideological grounds - namely, the dictatorship s military ethos According to this, Franco would
have pursued Spain's isolation as a means of preventing contagion from foreign, doctrinally corrupted
ideas See Juan Carlos Losada Malvarez Ideologia del Ejercito Franquista (1939 1959) (Madrid Istmo,
1990)
23
Franco, having his channels with the Western democracies blocked, resorted to those
other nations with which Spain still shared a common denomination in terms of culture,
tradition and historical affiliation Those "other nations" constituted, by reason of
further categorization, two distinct groups the Ibero-Amencan states and the Arab
nations 39 A rapprochement to the latter in the post-war years meant entering into
contact with the Arab League
While Franco sought the Arab countries' cooperation in order to overcome the
international sanction, the Arab League had its own interests in lobbying for Spain The
League had kept the internationalization of colonial North Africa's struggle for
independence a focal point in its agenda since its foundation in 1945 40 Therefore, even
before the Spanish-Arab diplomatic exchange resumed in December 1946, the colony
already was a pivotal bargaining chip to the regime The subsequent steady exploitation
of Spanish Morocco's asset suggests that, since the policies of substitution's conception,
the regime had been somewhat aware of the colony's potential as a powerful rhetorical
device However, because the Arab League was responsible for the introduction of
Spanish Morocco to the negotiating table, the regime's original intentions need to be reassessed
M^ Dolores Algora Weber "El aislamiento exterior de Espana las "politicas de sustitucion" en el
regimen de Franco (1946-1955)" in Critica Storica 28/4 (1991), pp 881 92 Also see Lorenzo Delgado
Gomez-Escalomlla, Lorenzo Impeno de papel Accion cultural y politico exterior durante el primer
franquismo (Madrid CSIC, 1992)
40
According to the Alexandria Protocol, signed by the League s future members, the interests of the
League were to be pursued "in the political and non-political spheres" It synthesized the League s
activities "towards the common good of all the Arab countries, the improvement of their status, the
security of their future, the realization of their aspirations and hopes" (my Italics) Ahmed M Gomaa The
Foundation of the League of Arab States Wartime Diplomacy and Inter-Arab Politics, 1941 to 1945
(London Longman, 1977) p 241 In spite of the statement s ambiguity Morocco was evidently one of
those Arab countries which "aspirations and hopes" had not yet been fulfilled
24
The regime's premise for appealing to the Arab world consisted, by and large, in the reelaboration of the Spanish-Arab friendship tradition It is essential to stress first that the
revisionism and exploitation of Spain's historical past as a Muslim kingdom had already
been used by the Africanista mindset Spain's moral (and exclusive) suitability for
Africa's colonization and the professed pursuit of preserving Morocco's political and
territorial autonomy from both internal fragmentation
and external (French)
depredations had epitomized the Africanista discourse since its onset in late nineteenth
century Nonetheless, its message was aimed at engaging the national polity and as
such, its impact remained circumscribed to the scope of home politics 41
The novelty in the Francoist re-appropriation lay precisely in its extent It redirected the
Spanish-Arab friendship rhetoric from Spain's national boundaries into the international
arena Indeed, Franco "with Martin Artajo at the wheel of foreign relations" conducted a
widening in both the significance and scope of identification, redefining the initial
"Moroccan" character to accommodate the more compressing "Arab" one
2
Accordingly, the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood doctrine would be taken as the
The impact and diffusion of Africanismo among the nineteenth century Spanish political body was,
given the regional, ideological and multifarious affiliation-based divisions, uneven Among the several
political factions with a significant popular support, only Carlism seems to have advocated for an overt
governmental involvement in Morocco Andree Bachoud Los espaholes ante las campahas de Marruecos
(Madrid Espasa Calpe, 1988) pp 289 309 The seemingly generalized popular indifference to the
Africanista message has to be contextuahzed in late nineteenth century Spain s social cleavages
resulting from the converging of political instability and financial straits The impetus of the Moroccan
adventure easily receded once the spiral of military disasters escalated, the subsequent loss of prestige
ended nurturing the general impression of Morocco being a nuisance to Spam Sebastian Balfour Deadly
Embrace Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2002) pp 3282
42
"Don Alberto Martin Artajo "el Canciller de la Resistencia"" in Revista de Politico Internaaonal 30
(1957) pp 9-13 Martin Artajo was, after Franco himself, the mam architect and driving force behind the
regime s policies of substitution In his capacity as ministry of foreign affairs Artajo would undertake in
April 1952 a rapprochement to the Arab world with the launching of an ambitious endeavor a
diplomatic tour throughout several Arab countries to cement their friendship M D Algora Weber
"Reahdades y contradicciones de la pohtica arabe del franquismo el viaje del ministro de Asuntos
Extenores Alberto Martin Artajo a Egipto y sus repercusiones en Marruecos (abnl de 1952)" in Portugal,
Espaha y Africa en los ultimos aen ahos, IV Jornadas de Estudios Luso-Espanoles, Merida (1992) pp 211224
25
theoretical mainstay from which the more utilitarian Spanish-Arab friendship rhetoric
was launched
A determining (and genuine) contribution to this discursive revamping during the late
1940s came from the character imprinted by Franco himself His military career during
the 1920s Rif wars evinced how the Africanista ideology had been ingrained in certain
quarters within the Spanish Army Franco s protracted stay in Morocco supplemented
that ideological standpoint with first-hand knowledge of the realities of Muslim North
Africa Based on that, Franco could claim to possess an insightful and far-reaching
understanding of the African subjects unchallenged by any other European colonial
power In order to underpin that exclusiveness of the Spanish colonizing action, the
dictator would juxtapose his own African experience with the management of colonial
Morocco
Franco's vision of Morocco, now directly associated with his personal experience, came
to typify Spain's spiritual connection with the Arab world 43 Morales Lezcano has stated
that Spanish Morocco became the regime s international showcase during the isolation
years 44 As a matter of fact, that image of Morocco (1 e the Spanish-Moroccan
brotherhood) would be always filtered through the dictator's personal conceptions In
exemplifying both Spain's bonds with the Arab world and the colonial experience in
Morocco, Franco updated, consolidated, and capitalized the Africanista discourse From
43
"That current and extraordinary friendship [the Spanish-Arab friendship] is in the first place
determined by the Spanish government s policy and especially, by General Franco himself" cited in
Fernando Frade Merino El momento de Espaha en Oriente Proximo (Madrid Eosgraf, 1970) p 9 Given
the personalist nature of the regime, the identification between Morocco and Franco can also be taken
as a logical extrapolation of the more general association Franco-Spain According to this, Franco was
the prism through which international views about Spam were perceived For an analysis of the role of
Morocco in Franco review Paul Preston Franco A biography (London Fontana Press, 1993) pp 1 69
44
Victor Morales Lezcano Espaha y el Norte de Africa el protectorado de Espaha en Marruecos (19121956) (Madrid UNED, 1986) p 84
26
the point of view of the Arab states and their incidental distrust of European (1 e
colonial) nations, Franco righteously stood as the West s most reliable statesman
regarding African affairs
Despite the fact that the regime s discursive appeal was initially well received, proof of
that purported Spanish-Arab friendship was expected to materialize by the Arab League
This, by and large, implied the demand for future political-administrative reforms in
Spanish Morocco The interrelation of these two premises - securing the Arab support at
the international level while conducting a satisfactory degree of reform in Spanish
Morocco to reciprocate that trust - constitutes the rationale upon which the colony was
maintained Furthermore, it synthesizes the first predicament upon which Franco's
policies of optimization were launched
B. From Colonization to Cultural Action. The Instrumentalization of
Morocco
While the League s interest in Morocco was implicit in its political corollary, it is
doubtful that the specific lines along which the co-operation with the Franco regime
eventually evolved were considered in advance
As early as 1945 (and before any
official Spanish-Arab negotiation took place) the League had already proposed the
establishing of a Cultural Affairs delegation for Spanish Morocco 47 After toying for
"General Franco is the European statesman that better knows the Islam world, for he spent most of
his military life in Africa " AMAE R 3018/9
46
In December 1946 Franco had sent the Sub-secretary Carlos Miranda to Cairo (location of the Arab
League s headquarters) in order to gam the Arab support for the Spanish lobby against the U N
condemn It has to be noticed that at the time, Egypt was also a non-permanent member of the U N
Security Council M a Dolores Algora Weber Las relaaones hispano arabes durante el regimen de Franco
La ruptura del aislamiento internaaonal (1946-1950) (Madrid Ministeno de Asuntos Extenores, 1995)
pp 41 6 The Spanish rapprochement was documented by the League s Council in its Resolution No
123 BY Boutros-Ghah The Arab League (1945-1955) (New York Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, ?) Ibid, p 428
47
Azzam Pasha, the League s Secretary General, had specifically advocated for the participation of
representatives coming from the non-independent Arab countries of North Africa This aspect had
27
some time with the idea, Franco allowed the colony's High Commissioner Jose Varela
to appoint (through the Caliph, the Sultan's direct representative in the Spanish zone)
three cultural attaches from Morocco to be sent to Cairo in February 1946
8
The
measure was taken as a means of providing tangible proof of the regime's commitment
to the "progress" of the colony Strictly speaking it was neither a political nor an
administrative-oriented reform but rather, a cultural formality in tune with the regime's
official rhetoric
It is worth noting that the extent and nature of the Arab League's cultural initiative held
a particularity due to additional interests in co-operating with Spain Indeed, the
expanding of culture-related activities in the colony also brought the League political
advantages in bargaining with the colonizing power the diplomatic access to the IberoAmencan states via Franco Gathering support (1 e votes) from U N members had
become, in the years before the U N resolution of the "Palestinian question", the
League's main priority According to this rationale, the League's cultural line in
Morocco would have likely predominated over political-administrative considerations
masmuch as the Spanish asset remained valuable regarding the "Palestinian question" 49
already being treated, though in a broader sense, by Article 5 (1945) where the League s co-cooperation
goals were defined as belonging to "cultural, social, health, and other matters with the representatives
of the local governments, or bodies, or local elements, in all Arab countries (my italics) " Gomaa Ibid,
pp 260 and 290
48
Algora Weber Las relaaones pp 86-7 and 177
49
While the Arab League s members offered a united front in key issues like the "Palestinian question",
there was no such consensus regarding many other international concerns Whether or not Franco was
aware of this fact, the Spanish rapprochement to the Arab world was in fact conducted on a one-by-one
basis - namely, individual meetings with representatives from different Arab states In the case of
Spanish Morocco s independence, there also seems to have been discrepancies between members and
even between national representatives from different political factions Egypt s Minister Ahmed Hassan
El Bakoun (known for his moderate views regarding the Moroccan crisis) stated in late 1955 his distrust
for the current orientation of Morocco s nationalist movement and went as far as affirming that the
colony was not ripe for independence "The Moroccan people from both zones are not prepared to
immediate independence and [ ] the establishment of a democratic regime would cause real chaos"
AMAE R 4293/5 [Dispatch from Jose M^ Bermejo to the Spanish Embassy in Cairo Tetouan, 14
28
Its settlement in November 1947 would substantially undermine the diplomatic value of
lobbying for Spain and, by extension, would revamp the League's internationalization
of the "Moroccan question"50 The Franco regime's subsequent optimization of
Morocco, even if after 1948 it had lost the advantage and was compelled to dodge the
League's demands for political reform presupposes a) that the Moroccan-anchored
Spanish-Arab rhetoric had succeeded in gaining the sympathies of the League's
representatives,51 and b) that the inception of the regime's colonial empowerment had to
occur during the period 1945-1947
Validating both premises entails identifying the Franco regime as the determining
agency disabling the League's push for Morocco's independence after November 1947
The maximization of this juncture (conducting minimal political reform while
benefiting from the international Arab support) constitutes the first external agency in
the empowerment of Franco's position in Morocco But by what means did the regime
succeed in turning Spanish Morocco from a potential nuisance to a political asset1?
December 1955] The existence of a range of opinions about Morocco s independence by different Arab
states during the late 1940s somewhat indicated those countries general regard for Franco, but not
always coincided with it Among the Arab nations, only Egypt, Syria and Lebanon (all of them due to
their own political agendas) extolled Franco s friendship in a more uniform manner Algora Weber Las
relaaones pp 303-4 This research addresses Spanish Arab relationships inasmuch as they affected
Spanish Morocco - or rather, inasmuch as they represented an active agency in the amelioration of the
dictatorship s standing in the colony
50
In spite of this, the personal prestige and reputation of Franco among the Arab nations continued well
after 1948 The dictator s refusal to recognize the State of Israel in 1948 earned him the unanimous
respect of the Arab world, which had closed ranks around the Palestinian verdict See Raanan Rem In
the Shadow of the Holocaust and the Inquisition Israel s Relations with Francoist Spam (London Frank
Cass, 1997) An additional factor to the maintenance of this reputation was the political role exerted by
the dictator The so called caudillaje system constituted an appealing model to the Arab world The
loyalty bestowed upon a strong and charismatic leadership was a familiar concept to most Islamic
countries Algora Weber Las relaaones pp 290 2
51
Azzam Pasha s warm praise to Franco s response was however favored by France s rejection to a
similar proposition The exploitation of Morocco s colonial setting (in other words, the binary French
colonization-Spanish colonization) will be covered in Section II of this chapter
29
Francoist rhetoric elaborated an image of Spanish Morocco as the expression of Spain's
cultural bonds with the Arab world Furthermore, the management of the colony was
presented as illustrating the very essence of that spiritual connection There exists
evidence that the regime's diplomats had known of the cultural overtones in the
League s international program at least since late 1945 52 Albeit lobbying with the
League had a short-term objective (namely, blocking the 1946 U N resolution), Spanish
diplomats already recognized the Moroccan asset's potential
The League s pursuit of co-operating with Spain by means of establishing a cultural
fellowship in Morocco suited the regime's Africanista rhetoric in at least two ways
first, it incidentally provided from Spain s perspective de facto consent (or at least, did
not pose any contradiction) to the professed spiritual nature of the colonizing action in
Morocco, second, it spared the regime additional diplomatic effort, for it already set the
ideological roadmap necessary to sell the Spanish-Arab narrative to the Arab public
opinion In turn, the regime would appraise the League's desires for cultural cooperation from the premise of Spain's own Africanista tradition
In epitomizing the Spanish-Arab friendship rhetoric in Morocco, the regime shaped the
mold for the colony's future discursive developments The League s predisposition
however, had set the conceptual framework in which any discursive elaboration
regarding Spanish Morocco would take place As a matter of fact, the League's proposal
had provided the regime a platform for steady rhetorical empowerment at a time, the
isolation years, when it urgently sought sources of legitimization Whether Franco's
response was born out of desperation, political acumen, or more likely a combination of
52
Algora Weber "La correspondencia diplomatica espanola en los anos inmediatos a la creacion de la
Liga arabe en 1945" in Estudios Histoncos Homenaje a los profesores Jode M? Zamora y Vicente Palaao
Atard\lo\ 1 (Madrid Universidad Complutense, 1990) pp 457-66
30
both, it relied to a great extent on an already formulated initiative. In this regard, the
success in the reinvigorating of Spain's colonial rule originated from the optimal use of
an asset set in motion by external agencies. Identifying the essentially reactive character
of the dictatorship's demeanor at this point is indispensable to trace the evolution of
Franco's tenure of the colony. The reactive component, as will be seen, represents a
recurrent feature in explaining the regime's stance and performance during Morocco's
final stage as a Spanish protectorate.
Following the precedent set by the League in 1945, the regime endeavored to conduct
an ambitious revamping of its colonial action in Morocco in consonance with the
official gospel. This initiative followed a chief rationale: reaching the balance between
changing as much as required to satisfy the Arab public opinion (maximizing the
international Arab asset) while not endangering the dictatorship's colonial power
(perpetuating Spanish Morocco's status quo). Since the cultural approach had proved to
be successful in the conceptual realm, so it would be applied to the actual management
of the colony. In other words, the earliest Arab complicity gave the regime the opening
for capitalizing the cultural component and making it the compulsory referent of
Spain's colonization in Morocco.
In order to string together praxis and colonial management, the regime first resorted to
linguistic subterfuge: the omission of the broad term Spanish colonization due to its
unsuitability as a working terminology. Far from being a mere issue of semantics, this
formal modification was thought to better convey the dictatorship's goals of stressing
the colonization's spiritual highlights over the material ones (what Mateo Dieste has
31
defined compensatory colonialism)
Given the regime's strong discursive orientation,
re-labehng Spain s whole colonizing nature was arguably a sine qua non for a durable
revamping of the colonial rule
In retrospect, this measure allowed the continuity of the dictatorship's colonial agenda
while softening its more negative connotations 54 In reality, by avoiding addressing
colonization as such, Franco was dissociating Spanish Morocco from the general
European colonizing experience The appeal, to both Morocco's nationalism and
international anti-colonial sentiment, also served to reinvigorate anew Franco's
professed colonial uniqueness
Francoism's official publications during the late 1940s and 1950s deliberately avoided
mentioning the status of Morocco as a colony 55 The term protectorate, on the other
hand, provided a linguistic artifice to mollify the negative implications of Morocco's
colonial status In the regime's lexicon, the term transcended its strict juridical meaning
to formulate a binary categorization a colonizer-colonized relationship where the
Josep Lluis Mateo Dieste La "hermandad" hispano-marroqui Politico y religion bajo el Protectorado
espahol en Marruecos (1912-1956) (Barcelona Bellaterra, 2003) p 28
54
During the 1950s, the overlapping of the concepts colonialism and European imperialism was growing
stronger regarding Africa s decolonization "For countries like Great Britain and France there arises the
important question of zones of influence Unanimous in their decision to stifle the national aspirations
of the colonial peoples ( ) The economic battles between France, England, and the United States, in the
Middle East, in the Far East, and now in Africa, give the measure of imperialistic voracity and bestiality"
Franz Fanon Toward the African Revolution (Political Essays) (New York Groove Press, 1967) p 123
An interesting (and to an extent exceptional) case can be found in the works of Jose M a Cordero
Torres, arguably the most renowned Africanista writer during the Franco dictatorship The author seems
to refer to the concepts colonization and protectorate as analogous to address the Spanish action in its
North African possessions Jose Maria Cordero Torres El africanismo en la cultura hispanica
contemporanea (Madrid Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1949) p 7 In a posterior work however, Cordero
Torres introduced a series of lexical nuances taken from the root word colony Citing the words of
Franco himself, the author emphasizes the difference between colonization and the Spanish word
colomaje "Coloniaje exploits and enslave, to colonize is diametrically the opposite it constitutes a
civilizing task" (my italics) Although different from other cases, this lexical categorization seemed to
imply the very same ethical absolutes suggested by other Africanista writers distinguishing the Spanish
action from the European experience La descolonizaaon Un criterio hispanico (Madrid Instituto de
Estudios Politicos, 1967) p 18
32
former performed the role of protector and benefactor, rather than that of exploiter
Ultimately, this linguistic dissociation sought a colonial image based in absolute, allexcluding moral grounds according to which Spam was a "protecting and never
colonizing nation"
The reiteration of the protector role set the pattern for suggesting a
further binary European colonization-Spanish colonization where Spanish Morocco
represented the antithesis of Europe's colonial miscarriage "because colonization a la
Spanish was incompatible with other methods [1 e the European colonization of
Africa] "58
According to this cultural re-definition, Spain did not practice colonization per se in
Morocco but instead, it pursued the completion of a cultural, spiritual and doctrinal
enterprise Euphemisms like "Cultural Action", "Spanish Action in Morocco", "Social
Endeavor" (Obra/Labor Social), "Protective Action" or "Morocco's Evolution" became
commonplace euphemisms for Spanish Morocco's colonization
Since the basis for maintaining Franco's position lay on a retentiomst logic, the bulk of
the regime's initiatives in Morocco generally sough to boost the facade of change rather
than its actual implementation On the few occasions where tangible legislative reforms
"In Morocco, Spam practiced an action of "protectorate", besides, because Morocco was a brother
nation, Spain included subtleties of comprehension and affection that conferred [the protectorate] a
tone and meaning altogether original " Tomas Garcia Figueras Africa en la accion espahola (Madrid
Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 1949) p 171 The use of quotation marks was not accidental, for in doing
so the logical lexical association between "protectorate" and "protector" was further emphasized
"Protecting and never colonizing nation, in Morocco [Spam] leaves a very profound mark of its
dismterestness and generosity " ABC (Seville) 10 April 1958, p 20
58
"[About the previous exemplary civilizing experience in America] Perhaps that is why Spam felt no
desire to join the easy conquest of Africa, also, because colonization a la Spanish was incompatible with
other methods" ABC (Seville) Editorial, 25 April 1956, p 21 This cause-effect logic between the
colonizer-colonized relations and Spam s anti European colonizing methods was explicitly addressed by
the regime s official historiography "( ) Spam sought to carry out an action worth of its lineage, thus
achieving far more sincere relations with the friendly moors than those obtained in their African and
Oceanic colonies by the rest of European nations I have personally visited many colonies and I can
assure that nowhere else I have seen a greater friendship than that between colonizers and colonized in
[Spanish] Morocco" (my italics) Carlos Martinez de Campos y Serrano Espaha Belica El Siglo XX
Marruecos (Madrid Aguilar, 1972) p 360
33
were carried out, they were either combined with more culturally-oriented
considerations or fancifully removed according to the circumstances
One of the best examples of reform plans conveying the regime s rhetoric was the
performance of the Direccion de Accion Social, founded in October 1952 and dependent
on the Delegacion de Asuntos Indigenas This institution resumed the essential
epigraphs in the regime's discursive overhauling just as the Oficina de Interventores
(the cornerstone of Spain's interaction with the Moroccan subjects) had done for
Spain's civilizing action in the past Its goals, in the words of the High Commissioner
Garcia Valino, were "the rise by all means of the standards of living and [the
acceleration of] the evolution of Morocco" 60 The DAS's competencies included a wide
range of issues including education, administrative and judiciary reorganization or
charity
Despite those claims, the institution cultivated from the beginning a
propagandistic image of Spain with a strong emphasis on the cultural factor over the
material one In point of fact, even the DAS's name was a codeword for the regime's
renewed colonial lexicon that sparked obvious references to Spain's "protecting
presence" in Morocco
The 1952 Decree allowing the formation and operating of political parties in Spanish Morocco would
be the exception and beyond qualms the highest concession ever granted during the protectorate
According to this research s approach, the context for this measure held a greater relevance to the
regime s actions regarding the exploitation of the binary French Morocco Spanish Morocco and
therefore will be examined in Chapter II, Section II During the years 1946 and 1955 several
administrative and economic reform programs were developed by the High Commission following
recommendations from El Pardo Among them, those projects such as the creation of Juntas Rurales de
Fracaon and Juntas Rurales Regionales entailed a will for some administrative reform Victor Morales
Lezcano El final del Protectorado hispano-frances en Marruecos El desafio del nacionalismo marroqui
(1945-1962) (Madrid Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Histoncos, 1998) pp 153-5 Another sound initiative
was the 1946 and 1948 Mahkzen (notables council) reorganization, which expanded the competences
of both the Caliph and the Grand Vizier by means of bureaucratic compartmentalization Those
competences however, proved to be futile since the regime revoked them when it saw fit Ramon Salas
Larrazabal El protectorado de Espaha en Marruecos (Madrid Mapfre, 1992) pp 260-8
Rafael Garcia Valino y Marcen Discursos de S E el Alto Comisanado Temente General Garaa-Valiho y
deSAI elJahfa Aid El Kebir 1953 (S L s n , 1953?) p 2
34
With regard to the implementation of relevant policies in Spanish Morocco, Franco
always remained the ultimate repository of decision-making. However, the particular
nature of the strategy dictated from Madrid since 1946 spurred the High Commission to
adopt a more directing role in colonial management. Indeed, the gradual settlement in
Morocco of the regime's policies of optimization ran parallel to the High
Commissioner's political invigoration. The seeming correlation between these two
processes could hardly be the product of mere coincidence. In fact, a contextual analysis
reveals a strong connection which, by extension, sheds additional light on the dynamics
between rhetorical elaboration and its projection into colonial management.
In the first place, it is essential to recognize that the empowerment of Franco's position
in Morocco had been launched in the face of a predicament - namely, Spain's
international isolation as an onus to the continuance of colonial rule in Morocco. In
order to maximize its chances, it is more than likely that the regime mobilized the
entirety of its resources, including those of the High Commission. In addition, due to the
initiative's orientation (i.e. the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood) a grass-roots approach
was imperative. The High Commission was the only body with the personnel, means
and functional expertise to consolidate Franco's scheme. An enlargement in its powers,
as long as it accomplished its objectives, would have been considered the most suitable
course of action at the time.
Lieutenant General Rafael Garcia Valino was Spanish Morocco's High Commissioner
during the most relevant years of the colony's optimization and, besides Franco, the
only other visible national figure in determining the colonial policy.61 Modern
61
Garcia Valino had been appointed by Franco in March 1951 to substitute Jose Enrique Varela, who
held the post since 1945. He would remain in charge of the High Commission until independence in April
35
historiography has tended to interpret Garcia Valino's involvement as indicative of his
personal political aspirations within the dictatorship
This might have driven the
execution of his duties to some degree However, the jurisdictional framework was
already expanding before he was appointed If an optimization of every resource
available in Morocco became an imperative around 1947, it is likely that an extension of
competences for any agency with jurisdiction in the protectorate was implicitly stated
Even if Franco's directions were interpreted as giving him carte blanche, the High
Commissioner would have not been exceeding his duties After all in 1951, the year
when the High Commissioner took charge, the colony's process of optimization was
still taking place At this very juncture, Franco's interests and those of Garcia Valino in
Spanish Morocco could not have differed significantly from each other
In short, the enlargement of the High Commissioner's duties towards a general
amelioration of the colony constituted an independent process resulting from the
1956 In the process of decision-making regarding Spanish Morocco for the period 1946-1956, two other
political figures performed a significant role among the regime s bureaucracy The already mentioned
Alberto Martin Artajo, as the main architect in the launching of Franco s policies of substitution, was
influential as Minister of Foreign Affairs His impact though was mostly organizational and overall,
indirect Since colonial affairs during Franco s dictatorship fell under direct control of the Prime Minister
office, the influence of Luis Carrero Blanco (Under-Secretary of the Prime Minister s office for the period
1941-1956) was considerably larger Apropos of his political competences within the regime, Stanley
Payne has affirmed that Carrero "dominated [on behalf of Franco] Spam s policy in Africa until his
death" Stanley G Payne El regimen de Franco 1936-1975 (Madrid Ahanza, 1987) p 556 M a C Ybarra
goes further and states that the power exerted by the new High Commissioner in Moroccan affairs
surpassed in practice those of Martin Artajo and Carrero Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
Prime Minister office had little reach in Morocco since the colony was considered "an appendage to the
Spanish territory" and rulership somewhat mirrored the metropolis personalist character M a
Concepcion Ybarra Ennquez de la Orden Espaha y la descolonizaaon del Magreb Rivahdad HispanoFrancesa en Marruecos (1951-1961) (Madrid UNED, 1998) pp 68 9 All things considered Garcia Valino
was, after Franco himself, the most influential Spanish figure during Morocco s final stretch as a Spanish
protectorate
62
Morales Lezcano, apropos of the Valino s actions in Morocco defines the High Commissioner as
harboring "guises of miniature caudillo, colonial viceroy and opportunist conspirator" Morales Lezcano,
El final, p 168 According to Lieutenant General Franco Salgado-Araujo s notes, Alonso Vega (General
Director of the Guardia Civil at the time) warned Franco in October 1954 about Garcia Valino being
"extremely ambitious and very dangerous" Teniente General Francisco Franco Salgado-Araujo Mis
conversaaones pnvadas con Franco (Barcelona Planeta, 1976) pp 21-2
36
implementation of Franco's maxims in Spanish Morocco. The personal imprint given
during Garcia Valino's tenure was sustained and preceded by this development.
A more dynamic approach of the High Commissioner to colonial affairs did not change
the fact that, by and large, no significant political concession was granted to Spanish
Morocco. The entirety of initiatives implemented in the colony for the period 19471955 nurtured the illusion of reform by re-directing the attention into the discursive
realm. An examination of Morocco's colonial management for this time period allows
the identification of a recurrent pattern of performance. According to it, an immobilist
rationale appears as a common denominator linking an otherwise disparate policy. At
first glance, a monolithic ideological posture does not seem to correspond to the
regime's political practice in Spanish Morocco. In point of fact, the adoption of such
positions would in theory contradict the desired overhauling of the colony.
Notwithstanding the apparent incompatibility of both premises, the display of resources
in the protectorate (Franco's policies of optimization) did entail the retreat to more selfsufficient grounds.
The basis for an upgrade of the dictatorship's standing in Morocco around 1946 had
been the intrinsic disadvantage of Spain in defending its colonial status in Morocco in
international forums. The revamping of the colonial image of Spain had aimed to even
that handicap with the support of additional international agencies such as the proSpanish Arab lobby. This, in turn, provided Franco the means to secure a more
favorable position against the internationalization of the "Moroccan question" - at least,
until November 1947. Although those policies of optimization certainly exhibited an
energetic mise en scene, they were all rooted in the same assumption: the overall
37
expansion of the Moroccan position None of them thoroughly contemplated or made
preparations for the eventuality that the colonial grip could actually diminish
The very conceptual elaboration of Franco's policies of optimization rested upon a
resolute and adamant principle the continuation of Spain's rule in Morocco This would
explain why, instead of carrying out limited-scope and localized reforms in the
protectorate, Franco resorted to a rhetorical empowerment of Spain's colonial
sovereignty Likewise, the regime's immobilism to the independence of Spanish
Morocco can only be explained from the standpoint of Franco's Africanista identity and
the ideological interdependence between the regime and the colony's possession
The exploitation of the international context regarding the regime's standing in
Morocco grew during late 1940s and the beginning of 1950s Several pieces of evidence
support the hypothesis that Franco's colonial rhetoric managed to accommodate Spain's
colonial interests to the international Arab demand for Morocco's gradual liberalization
In the first place, it is worth noting that since 1950 the bargaining terms in the
negotiation between the Franco regime and the Arab states were theoretically exhausted
On the one hand, the Spanish asset (the access to the Ibero-Amencan support) regarding
the Palestinian question had lost its usefulness in November 1947, on the other hand,
the Arab asset in lobbying for the derogation of the U N condemnation of Franco's
Spain had ceased, this time successfully, in November 1950 with the official annulment
of the Resolution 39/1 63
The project for the derogation of the 1946 resolution against Spam was finally adopted by the U N
General Assembly on November 4* During the session, with 38 votes in favor, 10 against and 12
38
Although the negotiating capital for both sides had almost been depleted, the League
continued from 1948 to maintain a rather favorable attitude towards Spain obviating its
liability as a colonizing power in Morocco Moreover, since 1948 the Arab League s
nations had been actively involved in pushing forward the internationalization of the
"Moroccan question" at the U N General Assembly When a resolution finally
succeeded in recommending measures toward Morocco's liberalization in December
1952, it only targeted France's colonial status 64 Neither the interests of individual Arab
nations (Egypt, Lebanon) nor Franco s anti-Israeli stance could be accountable on their
own for this generalized Arab contentment about Spanish Morocco Likewise, but for
the 1952 Decree, the indulgence shown by the Arab nations towards Franco's
management in Morocco was hardly reciprocated by any measure implemented in the
colony
The year 1953 marked the chronological zenith of the empowerment of the regime's
standing in Morocco as a result of the optimization of the international context It was
during 1953 when a current of rumors about Franco's schemes for granting
independence to the Spanish zone started to circulate among the Arab world
abstentions, the international condemn to the Franco regime was withdrawn Among those 38 in favor
there were all the Arab League s member nations with representation at the General Assembly (Egypt,
Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen) Florentino Portero Ibid, pp 400 1 In the period
spanning between this and the 1955 admission to the U N , the diplomatic value of the Arab support
was substituted by the American interest in promoting the inclusion of Spam into the international
organs For an account of the evolution of American Spanish diplomatic contacts until 1955 see Jarque
Iniguez Ibid , pp 267-345
64
Since 1951, several attempts had been made by the League in order to introduce the question of
Morocco s independence This included a three-staged program recommending "(1) the submission by
the Member States of a note to the Government of the French Republic urging the realization of
Moorish Independence (Resolution No 340, 17 March 1951), (2) A request to the Powers for their
intercession with the French Government for a fair solution of the Moroccan question (Resolution No
385,10 November 1951), (3) In case such endeavors fail, referral of the question of Morocco to the sixth
session of the General Assembly (Resolution No 385)" Boutros-Ghali, Ibid, p 429 However, they were
blocked by the French refusal (supported by most Western powers) to accept the General Assembly s
competences concerning its North African colonies Salas Larrazabal Ibid, pp 272 3
39
A case in point was the Jerusalem-based newspaper Al-Madh, which published on
October 31st the following "General Franco is conducting a secret study to separate
Spanish Morocco from French Morocco in order to grant independence to the former "
According to this Franco would promote Spanish Morocco's Caliph Muley El-Hassan
to the rank of Sultan in order to create the conditions for independence 65 Another
report, this time reflecting rumors from French Morocco, commented that Franco had
held secret meetings with the Sultan and the U S envoy during late 1952 to negotiate
the terms of independence for both zones 66 Information of this kind, in spite of the
graveness of its message, circulated in some degree among the Arab nations between
1953 and 1955
The existence of rumors of this nature, even if they were mere hearsay, in different Arab
states indicates a more than favorable Arab disposition to the regime's management in
Morocco This confidence in Franco's colonial policy could have hardly taken root in
the absence of evidences of the dictator's "good will" in furthering Morocco's road to
independence The lack of any political development undertaken in Spanish Morocco
makes Franco's rhetoric the only agency with the potential to persuade the Arab
opinion
There is no material evidence supporting that such information actually came from an
official Francoist source Identifying the authorship of those rumors seems to be a futile
task In spite of that, the hypothesis of Spain's involvement provides a theoretical
AMAE R 4488/61 [Dispatch from the Spanish Consul in Jerusalem to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Jerusalem, 6 November 1953]
66
AMAE R 4995/9 [Report about rumors of independence negotiations for Spanish Morocco] 3 January
1953
40
ground for assessing the material proceedings by which the regime carried out its
colonial revamping
In the first place, the dictatorship s diplomacy during the isolation years did not follow a
thoroughly delineated political plan According to Algora Weber, the lack of an
organized program in Franco s foreign action was constant throughout the isolation
years and somewhat reflected its "ambiguous performance" 67 If the regime s foreign
action for the period 1946-1950 was characterized by a significant deal of political
improvisation (or rather, the maximization of available resources), there is no reason to
assume that it did not become, to some extent, customary thereafter This lack of
adherence to a fixed protocol could have constituted the discursive platform for Franco
to occasionally make promises about furthering independence-oriented policies in
Morocco Once the Arab asset had been capitalized, diplomats could have felt
compelled to insinuate that Spain would continue pursuing a liberal policy in the
protectorate In the natural course of a diplomatic exchange, independence could have
been, if not explicitly stated, at least insinuated
More substantial evidence of Franco s involvement in the rumors of independence can
be interpreted by the lack of a firm diplomatic reaction to the spreading of that
information One of the recurrent traits of the Franco regime was its fixation to take
hold, curb and direct the public reproductions of its own image As already seen, this
had been one of the main indicators behind the rhetorical revamping of Spanish
67
Regarding the Spanish Arab co operation, Franco "developed a system to transform the Arab vote
into a positive asset" Algora Weber Las relaaones pp 301 6 As a matter of fact, the very conception of
Franco s policies of substitution lay on the urge to find alternatives through which counteract Spam s
handicap at the international level The absence of a methodic political design is taken by this research
as a structural condition, previous to the launching of Franco s policies of optimization As such, it does
not posit any incompatibility to the eventual accomplishment of the regime s international agenda
41
Morocco. Certainly, if the regime had found those rumors misleading or threatening to
its Moroccan position, it would in all likelihood have adopted a more energetic
approach in denying them.
There was however, an exception among the reports covering news of Franco's plans
for independence. In 1954 the regime issued a formal explanation where any
responsibility in the production of the rumor was disclaimed. On this occasion, the
Spanish diplomats wielded a misunderstanding on the part of the League's Secretary
General Abdel Khalek Hassouna and elucidated that "Spain would be willing to grant,
step by step, administrative posts to those Moroccans whose capacities and suitability
proved to suffice, until all vital offices would be held by [Morocco's] sons (my
italics)."68 Although the diplomatic reaction was in this case formulated in response to
an Arab demand presented in Madrid, the ambiguity of the justification cannot be taken
as consistent proof that Spain issued those statements.
In either case, it is likely that the regime surreptitiously welcomed the spreading of
those rumors as a valuable asset. As a matter of fact, they purported that very same
perception of Spain (as a colonizing power) that had constituted the cornerstone of the
Spanish-Arab friendship rhetoric. Even if those rumors were entirely fabricated (and
there are enough grounds to assume otherwise), the regime could have permitted their
circulation since it basically strengthened its own standing in Morocco. In the assurance
that followed until 1955, Franco could afford far-fetched, presumably ungrounded
rumors; if at some point they undermined the regime's Moroccan gospel, they could
always be rejected as deceptive.
68
AMAE R 5003/90. [Report on the Arab League's Secretary General Abdel Khalek Hassouna's
declaration to the Lebanese newspaper Beirut about Franco's plans to grant independence to Spanish
Morocco in 1955. Beirut, 10 October 1954].
42
II. French Morocco and Spanish Morocco. The Development of
Franco's Inverse Mirror Rhetoric
The second main premise taken by the regime to secure its position in the protectorate
for the period 1946-1955 was the exploitation of Morocco's colonial setting. While the
first locus for the empowerment of the Francoist regime in Morocco (the international
context) was originated externally, the second corresponded to an internal rationale. The
maximization of both contexts sought the amelioration of Franco's standing in Morocco
as a condition to achieve a resolute goal: the continuation of Spain's colonial rule.
Any desired advance on the Moroccan front needed to resort to the capitalization of the
protectorate's colonial history and also of its current developments - mostly determined
by the empowerment of anti-colonial discourses. Given Morocco's colonial setting as a
dual protectorate, both aspects pointed to the existence of a French zone as an
indispensable theoretical referent. Since the establishment of the protectorate in 1912,
the status of French Morocco as gravitational center of the colony was a fact not even
contested by the Franco dictatorship. Nonetheless, the uneven colonial leverage between
France and Spain represented a constant reminder of Spain's weakness in Morocco.
Regarding the regime's drive for improving its colonial standing, the maintenance of the
extant status quo between France and Spain posed an organic hindrance.
A. Antecedents of the Discursive Dependence to French Morocco
The predominant position of France in Morocco represented a core topic to the old
Africanista mindset, summoning bitter images of Spain's unfair disadvantage during
Europe's scramble for Africa.69 In Spanish Morocco, Spain's professed opprobrium as a
These considerations went back before the actual French occupation of Morocco. The French
penetration in North Africa during the late nineteenth century had already drawn the attention of
43
second-rate colonial power was implied by the obvious comparison with the French
protectorate French Morocco's superiority in material terms (dimensions, resources,
population) was further asserted by status considerations While Spanish Morocco had
the Caliph to act for Morocco's sovereignty, the French zone hosted the head of the
Shenfian Empire, the Sultanate This plainly indicated that a hierarchy among
Morocco's "protecting nations" existed, with France taking the leading role Indeed, the
constitutive duality of Morocco guaranteed that Spain, as the weaker constituent, would
often look at French Morocco with resentment
The causes of resentment against France, though conspicuously epitomized by
Morocco's colonial redistribution, were not limited to the colony If France's supremacy
disturbed Franco's schemes for swaying the balance of power, the former's presence as
the chief colonial power in North Africa hindered any possibility of colonial
enlargement Notwithstanding being a persistent source of distress, the French
protectorate also constituted the chief theoretical referent to the governing of Spanish
Morocco
The dependence of Spanish Morocco on its French counterpart was furthered by the
differing evolution of each nation's colonial management At the time of the conquest
Spain had lacked, besides the military brawn, the administrative and ideological
framework to approach a broad-ranged colonial seizure The French model in Morocco
Spam s Africanismo, which saw impassive how France "not satisfied with occupying the vast surface of
Algeria, has recently extended its territory to comprise the entirety of Tunisia" and further its efforts to
settle in parts of Morocco The Spanish pride could not allow, it was argued, that a powerful European
nation other than Spam occupied "the shores and territories that lay so close to u s " The French
expansion in Morocco was considered, by and large, a threat to the Spam s territorial integrity and by
extension, an attempt against its national dignity Opening speech given by D Francisco Coello during
the Soaedad Espahola de Africanistas y Colomstas Meeting at the Alhambra Theater, 3 March 1884
Reprinted in Coello, et al Intereses de Espaha en Marruecos (Madrid Instituto de Estudios Africanos,
1951) pp 6-7
44
- based in the twofold action of pursuing a politique d'association (indirect rule) while
furthering the sociological and anthropological understanding of the colonized - was the
theoretical referent that better suited Spain's colonial needs 70 The resulting colonial
model imposed on Spanish Morocco evinced the role of French Morocco as prime and
recurrent theoretical referent in the construction of a colonial discourse
The Spanish resentment toward France regarding colonial Morocco continued to play a
predominant role after the protectorate's foundational stages It must be noticed that, in
the first place, the Moroccan scenario had in many ways summarized the core of
Franco-Spanish relations to Madrid during the first half of the twentieth century The
origins of Franco's Francophobia can be traceable to the 1920s, when anti-French
sentiments against France's Moroccan policy reached a peak According to Susana
Sueno, 1923 marked an atmosphere of exacerbated Francophobia that permeated all
sectors within the Spanish society The purported anti-Spanish French policy in
Morocco had galvanized national sentiments to the extent that "no one made a secret of
"Despite the twentieth century [Spanish] military intervention in Morocco [ ], the empirical works
produced about the area were very limited and focused on those territories surrounding the coastal
military outposts [ ] No wonder that, given the lack of resources, the Spanish military and the
Africanista clique took the French experience in the Maghreb as a reference " Mateo Dieste Ibid, pp
56-60 During the French penetration of North Africa, two mam colonial models were formulated with
regard to the ruling of the new subjects On the one hand, a policy of assimilation was grounded on the
systematic substitution of the extant institutional setting for a French one, administered by
departments The most notorious example of an assimilation policy was practiced in Algeria On the
other hand, the colonial control over the population was exerted upon the implementation of a
politique des egards that sought the use of pre-existent religious and institutional traditions Although
fully realized in French Morocco, this model was first tested in Tunisia Driss Maghraoui "French Identity,
Islam, and North Africans Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Realities" in T Stovall and G Van Den Abbeele
(eds ) French Civilization and its Discontents Nationalism, Colonialism, Race (Oxford Lexington Books,
2003) pp 218-9
45
the hostility to France " This attitude was paramount and included "the military,
politicians of all tendencies, journalists, and even the king himself
71
Factors contributing to the spread of anti-French sentiments can be found in French
Morocco's General Resident Lyautey's elusiveness in co-operating in the suppression
of the Rif rebellion Besides, the French disregard of Spain and its protectorate had
allegedly verged on open discrimination against the Spanish authorities 72 In reality,
much of the Spanish animosity against France was a reaction to the implication of its
unsuitabihty to sustain a colonizing project in Morocco - an accusation that made
obvious reference to Spain's problems to govern itself and therefore an attempt against
its innermost national sentiments Taken as a whole, France's disdain helped nurture the
Africanista conviction that France's North African expansion had been completed at the
expense of Spain's colonial projection
Although the balance of power in Morocco did thwart Spain's colonial ambitions in
North Africa, it was tacitly accepted As a matter of fact, no modification of Morocco's
colonial status quo (rhetorical, military or otherwise) was officially considered prior to
the Franco regime
Stressing the centrality of the colonial setting in the construction of
Spanish Morocco is a fundamental step in addressing its discursive overhauling during
the Franco dictatorship Moreover, the identification of an already reactive nature in
Susana Sueno Seoane Espaha en el Mediterraneo Pnmo de Rivera y la "cuestion marroqui", 1923
1930 (Madrid UNED, 1992) p 1
72
Ibid , pp 56-62
During the monarchial period that preceded the instauration of the Second Republic in 1931, Spam s
officialdom (the future Africanista clique) had timidly supported Moroccan nationalism in the French
protectorate In August 1930, before French Morocco s negative, the Spanish Morocco s High
Commissioner Francisco Gomez Souza allowed Shakib Arslan (an influential champion of pan Islamism
among the Maghreb nations) to enter Tangier and Tetouan to meet the local elites C R Pennell
Morocco since 1830 A History (New York New York University Press, 2000) pp 233-4 Actions of this
kind however, were not fully endorsed by the Spanish government at the time For this reason, they
cannot be taken as entailing a thorough desire for modifying the colonial balance of power
46
both the material and rhetorical building up of the protectorate better substantiates an
interpretation of its developments for the period 1946-1956.
The predominance of the French influence escalated during the Franco regime. Because
Franco had typified, in his own way, the Africanista ideology, his personal views of
France heavily imprinted Morocco's intra-colonial discursive dynamics. Indeed, Franco
imbued the general resentment towards France in North Africa with his absolute
Francophobia. Arguably, the dictator's strong aversion to France apropos of the colonial
context had originated in his personal experience as a soldier during the conquest of
Morocco. After all, his military background suggested that the difficulties posed by the
colony's pacification were in great measure the result of the colonial re-distribution set
by France. Therefore, whilst France retained the so-called Maroc utile, Spain was
granted the control of the poorest, most rebellious and geographically awkward part of
the Sherifian Empire. Since Franco witnessed firsthand the dire effects of the uneven
colonial arrangement, it is likely that such experience contributed to deepen and fuel the
belief of Spain's ignominy due to France's orchestrations.
The continuity of a strong anti-French orientation in the direction of the Spanish
protectorate was thus greatly determined by the dictator's colonial ideas. In a caudillaje
system with an inherent proclivity to institutionalize the leader's views, Franco's antiFrench stance often ended up pervading that of the regime's administration. As a result,
the dictator's exacerbated Francophobia became increasingly normalized in the reenactment of Spanish Morocco's colonial discourse. Its centrality during the regime's
empowerment in Morocco, for the reasons already expounded, cannot be ascribed to the
sway of Franco's doctrines alone. Notwithstanding the sound imprint given by the
47
dictator, his views came to reinforce a trait that had already been capitalized by the
Africanista manifesto.
B. The Exploitation of the Binary French Morocco-Spanish Morocco
The reference of French Morocco had been pivotal in the articulation of a colonial
discourse for the Spanish zone since its inception. The exploitation of the binary French
Morocco-Spanish Morocco would become its chief and most utilized asset in the pursuit
for optimizing the regime's colonial standing.
Since the second half of the 1940s, Franco had sought to reconstruct the image of
Spain's colonizing action in Morocco with a twofold rationale: extra-colonially, the
prospective amelioration of the regime's Moroccan foothold served (though indirectly)
to breach the 1946 international blockade; intra-colonially, the optimization of the
Moroccan scenario set a precedent to safeguard the continuation of the colony under
Spanish rule. To this end, the regime undertook a formal facelift that deliberately
emphasized the unique traits of Spain's colonial action in Spanish Morocco.
In essence, the formula launched by the dictatorship pursued the instilling and spread of
fixed assumptions about Spain's colonization. Those assumptions corresponded to an
identification logic based on Manichean moral imperatives. The functioning dynamics
implicit in this discourse required the establishing of a moral standard that could be
taken as an absolute pattern of reference. In other words, the rhetorical revamping of
Franco's rule in Morocco necessitated a "colonial opposite" that, along the lines marked
by a binary association, drew a clear-cut distinction. Although Africa's European
colonization (taken as a whole) was the logical referent, Franco needed a more obvious
48
subject case with hallmarks which could be easily identified and represented in an
oversimplified binary categorization.
The colonial setting of Morocco has been pivotal in the governing of the Spanish zone,
by reason of both its foundation and its historical development. Among the variegated
European colonial experience, French Morocco was the most evident choice. The
French protectorate met all the requirements to be depicted as Spanish Morocco's
colonial antithesis. To begin with, it was premised upon the same juridical status of the
Spanish zone regarding the exact nature of the protector's prerogatives. According to
the international treaties, the role of France and Spain as protecting nations lay upon the
same logic and shared a similar juridical basis. With both protectorates sharing a
common colonial foundation, the comparison between their subsequent colonial
experiences was an easy task. A narrative built upon an analogy between each
protectorate's establishment naturally led to the contrasting of their respective colonial
performances.
Given the current developments taking place in both French Morocco and the French
colonial empire, this association benefited the image of Spain as a colonizing power.
The quick defeat at the hands of Germany had signified a serious blowback to France's
credibility as a protecting nation in the eyes of the Moroccan people, whose will to fight
contrasted with the metropolis' official passivity during the so-called phony war.74
During the postwar years France's colonial reputation would continue to decrease. The
hard line exhibited during the Indochina war starting in 1946 not only made apparent
France's inability to reach an agreement with the nationalists, but also the de facto
Pennell Ibid., p. 255. The perception of a weakened France among the North African subjects was
consummated by Lebanon's unilateral declaration of independence in November 1943. Events of this
kind demonstrate how France's defeat in the European front was felt in French North Africa.
49
unsuitability of its colonial model
The crisis unleashed by the Algerian war after
November 1954 came to reaffirm the assumption that French colonialism was but a
facade for French imperialism 7
In Morocco, the miscarriage in the Resident General's management regarding the
nationalist movement was conspicuous Since the 1930s, the Residency's zero-tolerance
stance to concessions had begun to antagonize an increasing part of the colony's
population By the 1950s, the prestige of France as a colonial powerhouse had
deteriorated to unknown levels To Franco's perspective, the difficulties faced by the
French Empire posed a more than suitable chance to decisively shift the balance of
power in the colony
By formulating a binary French colonization-Spanish colonization at this exact point,
the regime ensured that its image as a colonial power in Morocco would be portrayed in
the most favorable light Likewise, the obvious reference to France's current colonial
mismanagement(s) introduced a moral imperative that drew further and deeper
distinctions between the two protecting nations The French performance in Morocco
epitomized those elements (misunderstanding, intransigence, mismanagement) that the
rhetorical revamping of Morocco had need for Therefore, it was possible for the regime
This inability to negotiate also entailed the failure of the idea of a Union Francoise, which had been
first introduced in the 1945 Indochina Declaration Martin Shipway "Madagascar on the eve of
insurrection, 1944 47 The impasse of a liberal colonial policy" in The Journal of Imperial and
Commonwealth History 24/1 (January, 1996) pp 72-100 The idea of Union Francoise had been designed
"in such a way as to preserve the authority of France and its decision making powers in vital areas, such
as economy, foreign relations, and defense" Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hemery Indochina An
Ambiguous Colonization, 1858-1954 (Berkeley California University Press, 2009) p 355
The Algerian war of independence (1954 1962) made manifest the incompatibility of updating
Europe's old imperial model with the post war world and its new political and ideological trends The
virulence of both the metropolis tooth and nail defense of French Algeria and the FLN s determination
to break with France came to condense and embody the worst assumptions about European
colonization See Todd Shepard The Invention of Decolonization The Algerian War and the Remaking of
France (London Cornell University Press, 2006) pp 55 82
50
to extrapolate those milestones into black-and-white images according to an absolute
ethical criterion.
The result was the formulation of a dualist colonial discourse (inverse mirror politics)
where each protectorate stood as the moral antithesis of the other. Given the negative
undertones of the French model, the rationale for the Spanish colonization of Morocco
was considerably strengthened. The success of Franco's colonial rhetoric legitimized
both Spain's past colonial experiences and its current developments under the
dictatorship.
As already pointed out, one of the mainstays defining the Spanish action in Morocco
had been its reactive character to developments coming from the French protectorate.
The inception and progressive implementation of Franco's policies of optimization on
the colonial level relied almost entirely on a basic and immutable principle: to turn
Rabat's predicaments to the regime's benefit. Since the official discourse promoted the
identification of its colonial policy according to an oversimplified binary, any initiative
born out of it would somewhat resemble this dualistic model. Nonetheless, assuming
that the character of the regime's policies in Morocco corresponded to a blind and
exclusive determination to reflect a fixed mindset would be simplifying the colonial
realities of the time. The disparity between each colony's capacity to tackle nationalist
discourses cannot be contemplated from the point of view of Franco's doing alone. For
this reason, a brief comparative review of the state of affairs of the nationalist
movement within each protectorate prior to 1947 is necessary.
The uneven evolution of Moroccan nationalism in each protectorate resulted from the
convergence of several factors. The French disadvantage was in the first place inherent
51
of the colonial distribution, with many of the largest and most populated and
industrialized Moroccan cities under French rule, the nationalist (anti-colonial)
sentiment would arguably be more impetuous than in Spanish Morocco 77
The first nationalist demands in French Morocco during the 1930s were met with
Rabat's adamant refusal to grant any concessions An obdurate line would characterize
the Resident General's successive actions regarding the nationalist movement so that,
by the mid 1940s, stringent retaliation became a somewhat commonplace practice78
The breach between the Quai d'Orsay and the Moroccan elites grew steadily throughout
the following years By 1952, the virtual standstill of the 1947 reform plans had inter
aha galvanized popular attitudes from discontent into open uproar against the French
79
management
The situation in Spanish Morocco developed in a rather different fashion In the first
place, the combination of Morocco's colonial setting and Spain's lack of resources
somewhat delayed the articulation of a nationalist response to the colonial intervention
Paradoxically, the colony's comparatively low profitability and the lesser impetus of the
colonial effort had helped nurture the rhetoric of Spain's "humane colonization"
"In the economic field [ ] the contrast between the quiet provincialism of the Spanish Zone and the
intense economic development of the French one was, indeed, startling On the other hand, if wages are
much lower, so is the cost of living, nor is the Spanish zone afflicted to the same extent with the
ubiquitous shanty towns which are the symptom of too rapid industrialization in the French Zone [ ]
And of course the relative poverty is largely due to its lack of natural resources [ ] these facts have to
be taken into account in considering why [ ] the Spanish Zone has been less disturbed politically than
the French " N B "The Spanish Zone of Morocco" in The World Today 10/5 (May, 1954) pp 209-18
78
John Damis "Developments in Morocco under the French protectorate, 1925 1943" in Middle East
Journal 24/1 (Winter, 1970) pp 74-86
79
By the same time, mass mobilization and open noting in support of El Istiqlal Party (French Morocco s
mam nationalist movement) were taking place in what can be considering a point of-no-return in
Franco-Moroccan relations Stephane Bernard The Franco-Moroccan Conflict, 1943-1956 (New Haven
Yale University Press, 1968) pp 102-8
80
Mateo Dieste Ibid, p 28
52
Ultimately, this would hinder the development of an articulated nationalist movement in
the protectorate
Since Franco's seizure of power in Spain, the High Commission s policy of
economically supporting educational institutions had kept the population satisfied, thus
negating massive endorsement to the nationalist cause 81 The end of the war marked a
turning point in the nationalist position toward the regime The contacts with the French
zone (whose nationalism had crystallized throughout the war) gave new strength to the
determination to get rid of metropolitan rule The positions adopted by nationalist
movements from each colony continued to coalesce, culminating with the signing of the
1951 Pact of Unity, where both sides agreed to forbid any negotiation with the ruling
powers that preceded the granting of independence
Despite the traditional imbalance between nationalist movements in each colony, by the
late 1940s both Spain and France theoretically shared the same anti-colonial
predicament In such a context, how did the regime obtain better results in blocking the
nationalist movement's demands until 19559
It was no coincidence that Franco's policies of optimization were launched in the
context of the awakening of a more vigorous nationalist identity in Spanish Morocco
The slackening of the regime's colonial sway was evident at least since mid 1946, when
street paintings and political manifestos publicly questioned, for the first time, the
Spanish colonial action 82 Although those manifestations were promptly suppressed, it
was unmistakable that the threat posed by the spread of anti-colonial sentiments was no
81
Algora Weber Las relaaones pp 158-9
Slogans like "Abajo Espaha Larga vida a Marruecos" were found in Tetouan s walls in the summer of
1946 Ibid, pp 162 3
82
53
longer exclusive to French Morocco. As a matter of fact, the French experience
regarding the nationalist question would become, once siphoned through the regime's
rhetoric, a valuable asset to strengthen the control on the Spanish zone. The regime's
success in minimizing the effects of the nationalist demands between 1946 and 1955 lay
in great measure on the exploitation of the binary French Morocco-Spanish Morocco.
The curbing of anti-colonial sentiment in Spanish Morocco - at a point when it had
already become ingrained the protectorate's nationalism - can only be explained by the
Francoist counter- (or anti-) French colonization traits. However, the centrality of the
binary French Morocco-Spanish Morocco also pointed out how heavily the
dictatorship's colonial revamping depended on circumstances initially beyond its reach.
Indeed, the exploitation of developments taking place in French Morocco was always
preceded by a dependency, rhetorical or otherwise, on those same circumstances. The
reactiveness in Franco's colonial policy is essential to understand the regime's
management until December 1955, when the crisis reached the Spanish zone.
The set of initiatives implemented in Spanish Morocco for the period 1946-1955 were
naturally imbued by the regime's official rhetoric. Given the very limited liberalization
they entailed, those policies were meaningful to the regime inasmuch as they reenacted
the official discourse - i.e. inasmuch as they succeeded in positively swaying public
opinion about Spain's colonial action in Morocco. Especially regarding Morocco's
population, this meant sustaining and furthering the purported moral contrast between
the French and the Spanish actions.
Until the outbreak of the dynastic crisis in late 1953, the initiative that best compressed
the anti-French rhetoric was the 1952 Decree legalizing the formation of political parties
54
within Spanish Morocco. Despite being the most liberal policy ever implemented in
colonial Morocco (including both zones), the measure's effects sought precisely the
opposite: the reinvigorating of Franco's colonial standing at the expense of France. But
how could an initiative that allowed free political association (a privilege unthinkable at
the metropolitan level) ultimately benefit Franco's standing in Morocco? Moreover,
how could such a measure fit into Franco's military ethos and its relentless opposition
to civil politics?
In the first place, and despite the spread of anti-colonialism, the regime's standing in
Morocco since 1946 was relatively better grounded than the French one. The launching
of Franco's policies of optimization had been synchronized both at the international and
the colonial level. Therefore, the coeval international revamping of the SpanishMoroccan brotherhood rhetoric helped ensure a more likable image of Spain from the
perspective of Morocco's nationalist movement.
In addition to Spain's initial improvements at the international arena, France's prestige
in the region had followed a rather opposite direction from the mid 1940s. It has to be
emphasized that, though benefited by these events, the dictatorship at this point played
no role in the worsening of the French colonial rule in Morocco. The evolution of anticolonialism in French Morocco had been shaped, at least before the 1950s, by forces
entirely alien to Franco.
As part of Franco's scheme, a series of initiatives had been introduced in order to
emphasize the purported values of the Spanish colonial action since 1946. With the
fruits of optimization already materializing, the regime would have felt more confident
with the growing disparateness between the two Moroccos. This confidence was heavily
55
influenced by the conviction that the French stance towards the nationalists was
adamant and perpetual. Since France would never retract the tone of its Moroccan
policy, Franco thought that the French-Moroccan predicament could only worsen and
by extension, broaden Spain's advantage. The overall better disposition of Spain
indicates that, by 1951, the balance of power in Morocco had already begun to lean
toward Franco.
Though the gap between the Spanish and the French colonial hold had grown larger, it
is doubtful it could be sustained either by the regime's colonial discourse or by its
modest liberalization. The conclusive empowerment of Franco's position in Morocco
required a breakthrough that surpassed any previous initiative in perpetuating the
purported polarization between the French and the Spanish colonial actions. The fruits
of optimization within Spanish Morocco, along with France's downfall in its
protectorate, might have grounded and directed that determination to reach a turning
point. Granting political freedom within the Spanish protectorate was indeed a risky
maneuver, but also one that could polarize the gap between France and Spain in
Morocco to its full potential.
Throughout 1952, the three-sided tour de force between the French protectorate's
nationalist movements, the Sultanate and the General Residency had escalated. Resident
General Guillaume had reacted to the December incidents in Casablanca with a vast
police operation that included mass arrests, censorship and deportations. On December
10* the three main political forces deemed responsible - El-Istiqlal, the Communist
Party and the UGSCM {Union generale des syndicats confederes du Maroc) - were
56
forbidden throughout the colony
The discontent about native misrepresentation in the
protectorate's consultative organs however, had been central in the nationalist demands
at least since the poor implementation of the 1947 reforms 84
Like the case of French Morocco evinced, in the post-war anti-colonial struggle,
political representation (in the widest of senses) was often the harbinger that anteceded
independence In the regime's colonial schemes, granting political freedom was also a
priceless asset When contrasted with the situation in the French zone, it would make
plain that the Spanish colonial action differed radically from that taken by Rabat
The March 7l Decree allowing the formation and operation of political parties in
Spanish Morocco preceded the French banning of political parties by more than half a
year However, the current development of the Franco-Moroccan crisis (namely, the
radicahzation of the General Residency's counter-offensive and the curbing of native
political representation) was certainly known by Franco Given the better disposition of
Spanish Morocco regarding the nationalist onslaught, Franco might have concluded that
the benefits of liberalizing political activity outweighed the risks 85 According to the
Bernard, Ibid, pp 116-7 From that moment until independence in 1956, those political formations
enjoyed within French Morocco a political status of semi-clandestinely Their activities were either
tolerated or banned by the Residency following a more informal criterion AMAE R 3827/4 Campaha
contra la actitud espahola en el protectorado Oujda, 21 December 1955
84
The 1947 reform plan presented by Resident General Alphonse Jum had stirred from the beginning
the anti-colonial flame The several administrative measures had been meticulously crafted to
undermine native autonomy and power and to consolidate the French settlers political preeminence
under the rhetoric of Morocco s co-sovereignty (what would be later called interdependence) Bernard,
Ibid, pp 64-94
In addition to other considerations, the lack of noticeable communist undertones among the colony s
nationalist trends seems to have being an influential factor in favor of the Decree s implementation
Ybarra Ibid, p 69 Given Franco s paranoia about the communist element and its tendency to inflate
that threat, the political situation in Spanish Morocco around 1952 might have been considered as not
harmful to the regime s schemes When interviewed in December 1955 about France s repression of
communist elements in French Morocco, Garcia Valino emphasized that the movement in Spanish
Morocco "was purely nationalist" AMAE R 3843/14 [Interview of Egyptian newspaper El Gomhona to
General Garcia Valino Cairo, (?) December 1955] This assumption seems to have been confirmed by a
U S National Security Council report from June 1954, in which the "virtual absence of communist
57
fuelling of the binary French Morocco-Spanish Morocco, the advantage granted by the
worsening of the Franco-Moroccan crisis represented a golden opportunity for the
regime's rhetorical empowerment
The advantage gained by the issuing of the 1952 Decree was noticed almost
immediately Moreover, as long as such an advantage continued to grow, it provided the
regime a powerful and constant source of legitimacy As expected, the legalization of
political activities m Spanish Morocco not only gained Franco the favor of the
nationalists, but also drew a clear-cut distinction between Spain and France's
disposition to meet colonial demands Certainly, withm the frame set by both
Morocco's current developments and the dualism of the regime's rhetoric, to praise
Spain's gesture implied acknowledging Franco's colonial discourse To the nationalist
cliques from both zones, this involved tacitly legitimizing Franco's claims of Spain's
uniqueness while undermining France's colonial foundations
In May 1953 Mohamed Hassan El-Ouazzam, leader of the PDC (Parti Democratique
Constitutional)
approached the Spanish authorities seeking their "mediation" in
gaining diplomatic access to the United States - which geostrategic interests in North
Africa had given the country an increasing role in colonizer-colonized disputes What
matters here is the fact that the PDC policy of securing international support for
Morocco's independence considered Franco's Spain an arbiter rather than a colonizing
power 86 According to the report, El-Ouazzam stated that his party (and Morocco's
nationalist movements) did not extend the revolutionary struggle to Spain because they
activity" was suggested as inter alia explanation for the colony s stability Presidential Directives,
PD00406, U S Policy toward Spam 59 pp May 12 1954
86
By that time (May 1953), the "Moroccan question" had not yet been successfully addressed by the
U N General Assembly
58
reckoned "the distinction between Spain's and France's stances"
The management of
the anti-colonial movement in Spanish Morocco (1 e the exploitation of Morocco's
colonial duality) had by late 1953 apparently succeeded in dissociating Spain from the
negative connotations attributed to the European colonial establishment
As already suggested, the growing polarization in Morocco's colonial scenarios fuelled
even further the empowerment of the regime's standing in the colony The Residency's
measures to constrain the political development of Morocco s nationalism in its zone
provided the High Commissioner a constantly-resorted source of legitimacy To the
regime, the appeal of contrasting how Spain managed to prevail (over the very same
predicament) where France was unable to, was manifest and gratifying In many ways,
it signaled the potential for Spain's colonial empowerment and the beginning of a power
shift not contested since the protectorate's foundation
In addition, it gave the
nationalists tangible proof of the trustworthiness of the dictatorship's SpanishMoroccan brotherhood rhetoric
Spain s political openness became one of the most reiterated arguments when stressing
the righteousness of the regime's colonial management Garcia Valino often resorted to
Spanish Morocco's political freedom when the regime's commitment to Morocco's
independence was questioned
In his own words, Spain had "a representative
government for all Maghreb political trends (my italics)" When questioned about
Spain s plans for independence, the High Commissioner stated that "We [the Spanish
AMAE R 4995/4 [Dispatch from the Spanish Embassy in Cairo to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cairo,
5 May 1953] However the image of Franco s Spain as a benefactor, the PDC (like most nationalist
movements in North Africa) still targeted total emancipation as the ultimate goal Paradoxically, the
rhetorical model set forth by the regime could be also used as a platform for the nationalists search for
international support Although the desired American back-up to the revolutionary struggle never
materialized, this possibility already points at a basic flaw in the regime s rhetoric its miscalculation of
both the pace and ripeness of Morocco s independence
59
authorities in Morocco] recognize the legitimacy of political parties In one word, we do
our best to achieve the autonomy" 88 A less subtle wink to France's repression of
political activities in its zone can be found in an interview given to the Daily Telegraph
in October 1955 About the worsening of the Franco-Moroccan crisis, Garcia Valino
made the following comment "if the Nationalist movement is channeled into right
directions it is a power for good In the French zone, where a barrier has been raised
against the Nationalists, there is excitement and war" 89
The legalization of political parties in Spanish Morocco gave the regime a comparative
advantage over France Even considering the reactive character of the maneuver, the
empowerment of Franco's standing in Morocco throughout 1952 was, to a certain
degree, the direct product of the Francoist apparatus The worsening of the FrancoMoroccan crisis, however, acted as a catalyst that propelled the regime's measure to
reach levels that might have not been a priori considered The 1952 Decree's success
can be thus attributed to the regime insofar as it was launched upon the exploitation of a
given situation (the gap between the French-Moroccan crisis and Spanish Morocco's
gradual optimization), the fruits from its subsequent utilization until October 1955
however, were the result of the deepening of the French predicament in its protectorate
Facing an extremely adverse scenario characterized as a national-scale revolt, the
orientation of France's crisis management since 1952 was too unpredictable
The
colonial instability had somehow contaminated the Residency's capacity to articulate a
AMAE R 3843/14 Ibid
AMAE R 3827/4 [Report about the interview given by Garcia Valino to British newspaper Daily
Telegraph in Tetouan, (23?) October 1955]
60
coherent response to the uprising
Consequently, while the turn of events in the sister
colony clearly served Franco's plans, it was in no way possible for the regime to
anticipate the Residency's next step Whether this ended up benefiting (the 1953
destitution of the Sultan) or harming (the 1955 dynastic restitution and independence
negotiations) Franco's interests, the French policies during these years often took the
regime by surprise The understanding of this relation, along with Franco's predictions
about the orientation of the French policy, is essential to assess the 1955 regime's
collapse.
The amelioration in the image of Spain to the detriment of France also helped the
regime to thread its current rhetoric with the revisionism of the country's past colonial
performance The quintessence of the Africanista mindset was built upon Spain's
alleged historical expertise in Moroccan issues The Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood
rhetoric was premised on the same conviction and added forty years of experience in
colonial management Following these parameters, the Spanish protectorate was to the
Francoist regime a fact of historical (and providential) continuity and as such,
epitomized the long-standing connections with the Maghreb people
Therefore,
The pressure faced by Rabat during these years is reflected in the quick succession of Residents
throughout the crisis For the period spanning from 1951 until 1955, the General Residency s office was
held by five different individuals This is all the more striking when compared to its Spanish counterpart,
where Garcia Valino remained in his post as High Commissioner from his appointment in March 1951
until the colony s independence In addition, the Residency s compromised position since 1948 was also
caused by the deterioration of relations with Pans, which liberal sectors advocated for opening
negotiations with the Sultan and the Moroccan government Bernard, Ibid, pp 76 7 The difficulties
experienced by Rabat also need to be taken as part of the constitutional and ideological impact that the
imperial breakdown had in metropolitan politics during the 1950s Such a correlation between colonial
politics and metropolitan stability was particularly unleashed by the Algerian crisis The colony s status
within France s constitutional framework elevated the question of Algeria s independence into a
concern of metropolitan politics and national identity Ultimately, it would contribute to the fall of the
Fourth Republic in 1958 Martin Shipway Decolonization and Its Impact A Comparative Approach to the
End of the Colonial Empires (Massachusetts Blackwell, 2008) pp 199 240
61
enhancing Spain's colonial image in the present also implied "updating" the country's
past performance to meet the current standards of success.
The purported moral contrast between the French and the Spanish colonial actions could
be also extrapolated to the past. This, in turn, made it possible to revisit Spain's past
colonial discourses and to oppose them to a negative image of French colonization. This
distinction would be drawn according to the same absolute moral criterion employed
during the optimization of the international context. The most exploited argument in the
revisionism of Morocco's colonization was Spain's alleged respect for the authority of
the Sultan and its adherence to the territorial integrity of the Sherifian Empire. Again,
the righteousness of Spain's past colonial performance was stressed by opposing it to
the French actions, which were presented as a continuation of France's colonization
prior to the protectorate's foundation.
It is difficult to assess how different the revisionism of Spain's colonial performance
could have been had the development of the Franco-Moroccan crisis not offered such a
propitious context. In French Morocco, the increasing political unrest and mounting
tension following the 1952 incidents of Casablanca led to a series of events that
culminated with the deposition of Mohammed V on August 20th 1953. Notwithstanding
the French policy's obvious benefits to the regime's empowerment in Morocco, neither
Franco nor the High Commissioner played any significant role in its outcome.
It is not likely either that Rabat contemplated the full effects this move might have in
the preservation of the colonial status quo.
In any case, the Residency's decision
The deposition gave Resident Guillaume both a larger internal political leeway and a higher degree of
autonomy from the Quay d'Orsay. Bernard, Ibid., pp. 122-63. As a well-crafted conspiracy, potentially
62
unintentionally provided the regime a tremendously resourceful asset to continue
inverting the colonial balance of power. The Sultan's removal was so far the most
tangible evidence in support of Franco's rhetoric: it discredited the French rule in the
eyes of the Moroccan people and as such, helped consolidate a proportionally positive
image of Spain and its management.
The capitalization of the dynastic crisis was, in many respects, a logical continuation of
the regime's colonial policy since 1946. However, the potential to switch Morocco's
balance of power amply surpassed any previous stage in the revamping of the regime's
rule in the protectorate. Prior to the Sultan's removal, Franco had relied to a great extent
on the rhetorical manipulation of France's Moroccan (and North African) predicaments.
Once those colonial discourses proved profitable to the betterment of Spain's hold in
Morocco, initiatives were implemented to secure those results. The degree of public
hostility to the Residency's actions advanced, in a way only previously suggested by
speculation, that Spain could actually overcome France as influential power in
Morocco.
Luring Morocco's public opinion by means of historical revisionism was attainable, to a
certain degree, without seriously compromising relations with the Residency; to support
Morocco's demands (and eventually, militancy) implied a mobilization of the colony's
resources that had not yet been undertaken. Indeed, the scale of involvement required by
the exploitation of the dynastic crisis constituted an exponential step compared to the
regime's past performance. The pursuit of discrediting France (most notably, the rise of
the High Commissioner's role) transformed the parameters along which the regime had
negative reactions within French Morocco and from the Arab League were considered. No special
attention seems to have been given at how the removal could affect relations with Spanish Morocco.
63
operated. The ultimate consequences of these developments would be unleashed the
moment the French colonial predicament came to an end.
The regime's instrumentalization of the Sultan's deposition was promptly set in motion.
The High Commissioner, in a public statement to the Caliph on August 25* , commented
on the Residency's actions. Garcia Valino emphasized how Spain, unlike France, had
"faithfully honored the commitments made with Morocco".92 This was an obvious
reference to the duties that the colonizing nations had acquired over Morocco at the time
of the protectorate's foundation. Respect of the Sultan's authority had been the
legislative mainstay upon which France (and Spain) had taken over Morocco; in
deposing Mohammed V, France had blatantly infringed its chief commitment with the
Moroccan people.
In the regime's scheme, France's actions were to be contextualized not just in the
current colonial situation, but on a historical sense as well. As such, the breach that
resulted from the Residency's stratagem was symptomatic of the historical flaws in
France's colonial project in the Maghreb. As the 1950s events in Morocco and Tunisia
(and later on, Algeria) were demonstrating, France's true colonial nature could no
longer be concealed.
The debacle of the French rule in North Africa was therefore explained as the product of
a single, oversimplified rationale: France's lack of historical connection with Africa.
Spain's bonds with Morocco were in contrast presented as a fact of historical continuity.
To Franco's Spain, the authority of the Sultan was not merely a contractual commitment
with the Moroccan people in the context of Europe's seizure of Africa; it was a
Cited in Morales Lezcano, El final., pp. 156-7.
64
meaningful gesture that somehow compressed the many links "highlighted throughout
centuries of common history" 93 In this fashion, the pretext of the Sultan's removal
facilitated the regime the means to thread together its present colonial rhetoric with the
self-representation of a historical past
The regime's discursive interpretation of the dynastic crisis was effectuated upon
specific lines - namely, highlighting the emotional traits of the Spanish support Franco
took the significance of the Sultan's dethroning as the epitome of France's iniquity in
Morocco and extrapolated it into an appealing moral ground The spiritual links
purported in the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood were condensed by the individual
support given by Franco to Mohammed V Likewise, the affection offered by Franco to
the Sultan was also that of the Spanish people as a whole The affront inflicted on the
Moroccan populace, by virtue of the spiritual and emotional affinity between both
nations, was presented as an affront to Spain itself
In defending the inviolability of the Sultan's authority, Franco dissociated the Spanish
actions even further from the French colonial experience This strategy gained the
regime, along with the sympathy of Moroccans from both protectorates, the automatic
(and seemingly unconditional) support of the Spanish zone's elites In a communique
directed to Franco in January 1954 judges, politicians and religious leaders from
Spanish Morocco referred to the "opprobrium inflicted by the French authorities" and
praised Franco for knowing "how to compress in his Moroccan policy the deepest
feelings of the Moroccan people" 94
Garcia Figueras, Ibid , p 143
Marruecos a Espaha a Espaha, a su Generahsimo Franco, que ha sabido recoger en su politico en
Marruecos los sentimientos mas hondos del pueblo marroqui, 21-1-54 [SI s n , 1954?]
65
This statement was part of what can be rightly considered the regime's first step toward
the capitalization of the dynastic crisis the organization of the so called "Tetouan Horse
Racing meeting" on January 21 st During this rally, High Commissioner Garcia Valino
managed to channel the unrest among the colony's political elites against the Residency
into a theatrical display of Spanish-Moroccan friendship Garcia Valino's orchestrations
inflated the anti-French atmosphere while simultaneously, incorporated it into the
dictatorship's colonial rhetoric with satisfactory results The signatories went as far as
asking Franco for the temporary separation of Spanish Morocco from the French zone,
as well as Spain's arbitration in the conflict m its capacity of "friendly power" 95 As
evinced by the trust bestowed upon Franco, in endorsing the Sultan's cause the High
Commissioner was attaining a great deal of political capital among the Moroccan
subjects
As already pointed out, the exigencies implicit in the optimization of the dynastic crisis
would modify the nature and extent of the regime's intervention In order to maintain
Spain's status as defender of Morocco's rights, such actions needed to be correlated
with the colony's nationalist political activism Certainly, for all practical purposes
Franco's agenda had to be shown as subjected to the pro-legitimacy cause, since it had
been publicly identified as Spain's cause as well The pursuit of that twofold policy (1 e
disguising the regime's interests as part of the pro-Sultan cause) required a greater-thanever mobilization of the Spanish colonial resources By and large, such a display (or
The idea of the separation had been introduced by a Moroccan dignitary as an interim measure
(namely, a legislative subterfuge) that allowed Spanish Morocco to avoid paying allegiance to "France s
Sultan puppet", Mohammed Ben Arafa As the original document stated "We ask for the circumstantial
separation of the Spanish zone, insofar as the political conditions currently governing the French zone
do not change [We ask] for full sovereignty over the zone to be given to the Caliph, with no dependence
whatsoever to Muley Arafa" Salas Larrazabal, Ibid, p 276
66
rather, its colonial groundwork) pointed at the High Commissioner's office as the only
agency capable to carry it out
It was in the regime's best interest to maintain the current state of crisis in French
Morocco With optimization already in motion, such a status quo could be preserved, or
even broadened, by supporting those elements of destabihzation within the French
colony Nationalist groups, pursuing guerrilla warfare in acts of urban violence against
Frenchmen and Moroccan collaborationists alike, represented those elements 96 The
logistics provided by the High Commissioner to pro-Sultan political platforms were thus
expanded to include less conventional approaches
Spain's official policy in Morocco from 1954 to independence on April 1956 consisted
in overtly assisting anti-Rabat political activism while surreptitiously succoring the
insurgency withm French Morocco The support given to the insurgency was a fact as
early as January 1954, when rebel Goum units (auxiliary Moroccan soldiers in France's
Army of Africa) were allowed by the Spanish authorities to be stationed on the frontier
Though a rather timid step, Garcia Valino would in turn intensify the Spanish
assistance Such aid included, according to some historiography, providing operational
bases, equipment and even military training to the rebels 97
The Spanish role in abetting French Morocco's insurgency would be plainly denied by
the High Commissioner When in late 1955 he was asked about the Spanish authorities'
involvement in the smuggling of weapons to the French zone, he replied "smuggling is
The emergence of anti-colonial violence in French Morocco had coincided with the popular uproar
following the Sultan s deposition and the Residency s measures against the Makhzen The virulence and
consistency of the attacks became constant after the attempt against Ben Arafa on September 11 t h
Bernard, Ibid, pp 192-3
97
Ibid, p 203, Pennell, Ibid , p 289, Salas Larrazabal, Ibid , p 275
67
always possible in such a country I have never said there was no possibility of arms
being smuggled through the Spanish Zone, but I have taken precautions to ensure that if
it does go on it will be negligible"98 The degree of the regime's involvement in
financing the insurgency cannot be estimated accurately However, the tone of
confidence used by Garcia Valino reveals, if not the nature of such aid, at least the
favorable colonial context within which Spanish Morocco's optimization was taking
place
Interestingly enough, this situation mirrored a previous episode in Morocco's mtracolonial relations dunng the 1920s Rif wars, when Spain accused Resident Lyautey of
aiding the rebels Though the evidence was similarly weak, Spain pointed at the French
authorities' "officious complacency" in organizing and financing the insurgency within
the Spanish protectorate99 Besides constituting a curious paradox, the connection
between these two events highlights the all-encompassing context of Morocco's balance
of power In both cases the rationale seems to have been, theoretically speaking, the
same to support elements of destabilization operating in the other zone as a vehicle to
reaffirm one's colonial position
Whether the High Commissioner willingly abetted the insurgency or turned a blind eye
to its activities, the latter's interests were, to a certain point, those of Spain's too The
colonial balance of power (though in a rather different sense) would constitute, after
98
The journalist John Whittles, who conducted the interview, stated that "after two weeks of intensive
investigation into conditions in Spanish Morocco" he found no evidence to substantiate the accusation
of Spam s aid to the rebels In the same report, in an interview given to Le Monde a French soldier
dismissed the Spanish involvement and attributed the arms smuggling on France s lack of proper
surveillance due to the border s extension AMAE R 3827/4 [Report about the interview given by Garcia
Valino to the British newspaper Daily Telegraph in Tetuan, (23?) October 1955] [Report about the
French newspaper Le Monde Pans, 23-4 October 1955]
99
Among other considerations, it was believed that "in great measure, the Riffians were supplied with
weaponry [arms, ammunition] by means of intense smuggling with the complicity, or at least the
indifference, of France" Suerio Seoane, Ibid, pp 19 24
68
independence, one of the regime's main arguments in defense of its permanence in
Morocco.
Though a less substantiated premise, the Africanista Francophobia can also be
considered as a legitimate motive for aiding the resistance in French Morocco. Both
Franco and Garcia Valino had been imbued by hatred against the French during their
African experience (precisely, at the time of the Rif upraising against the Spanish rule);
in all likelihood, the current power relationship in Morocco would have been not just
well-received as a political advantage, but savored with great personal satisfaction.
Besides, the consummation of the regime's standing in Morocco (and by extension the
collapse of French supremacy) could have not gone unnoticed to Franco's historical
revisionism. The opportunity to reciprocate for the opprobrium the French had inflicted
on Spain, especially when it resembled so faithfully the 1920s scenario, suggested a
certain sense of historical fairness.
The Spanish print media, on its part, contributed to depict the situation in French
Morocco a far more desperate than it possibly was. According to the regime's press, the
succession and escalation of violence and the generalized uncertainty were symptomatic
of a "process of decomposition" affecting the French zone. The current state of affairs
in French Morocco was the direct result of France's mismanagement which, by
deposing the Sultan, had "forced the course of events, inaugurating a period of
[managerial] blunders".100
In order to emphasize the precariousness of the French position, the Spanish media
offered ample coverage of incidents occurring in French Morocco. In many instances,
100
"MARRUECOS frances, al borde de la ANARQUIA". Informaciones, 20 December 1955, p. 7.
69
this led to the publishing of incendiary, mainly cynical headlines ' 01 The Residency's
response to the proliferation of anti-French stances was also criticized
On a
retrospective of the year 1955, the newspaper Informaciones identified Rabat's
performance as having inherited "the grave mistake of Bidault's and Juin's (French
Morocco's former Residents) " force policy"" and how, as a result, Morocco "had to
remember his drama and turned it into a tragedy (my italics)"
In addition to the print
media, the anti-French orientation of Radio Tetudn (Spanish Morocco's main radio
station) would decisively contribute to stir local resentment against Rabat103 The
predominant anti-French tones in the regime's media coverage of the French Morocco's
situation would continue, as it will be seen, even after independence
As could be expected, the High Commissioner's role in the spreading of anti-French
sentiments among French Morocco's populace raised concern in Rabat In November
1955 the French media echoed the frustration of the Residency and accused Spain of
abetting terrorism and stirring nationalist fervor and religious fanaticism against the
French administration In regard to the support given to the insurgency, Le Monde
defined the rebels as "madmen excited by other madmen [the Spanish authorities]" 10
Another newspaper condemned the permissiveness of Garcia Valino toward the Spanish
Examples of this can be found when analyzing some of the headlines of the Francoist press for
November 1955 "Amenaza de crisis francesa por la cuestion marroqui" Ya, 4 September 1955, "Quince
personas asesinadas en el Marruecos frances" Pueblo, 21 November, 1955, "Nuevo alzamiento nfeho
en el Marruecos frances" Pueblo, 28 November, 1995
"1955 Un ano que se despide Francia tuvo su mal momento en la cuestion marroqui"
Informaciones, 27 December 1955, p 7
AMAE R 3827/6 Clipping from report "Commentaires releves dans la presse et les emissions de
radio espagnoles au sujet de la situation dans la zone francaise de I empire chenfien " (?) November
1955
AMAE R 3827/4 [Report about Arthur Conte s article "L histoire d une epee" Le Monde, 4 November
1955]
70
colony's inflammatory media and even identified him as "doubtlessly, the soul of the
rebellion" 105
Franco's not-so-subtle maneuvers to strengthen his position at the expense of France s
were also well known in Rabat
6
However, since the Residency was accountable on its
own for the Moroccan crisis, the French media could hardly accuse Franco's Spam of
little more than benefiting from its mismanagement
Generally speaking, until
negotiations for the return of the Sultan advanced in late October, the Residency kept a
rather low-profile in getting actively involved in dialectic battles with Francoist Spain arguably, due to the urges of facing colonial instability, on the one hand, and
metropolitan political pressure, on the other
The start of the Franco-Moroccan negotiations for an independence agreement marked,
in quite an abrupt manner, the end of Franco's empowerment in Morocco This was
logical, since the enlargement of Franco's colonial standing had been fuelled (arguably
like at no previous point during Spanish Morocco's optimization) by the exploitation of
the dynastic crisis It was during the period of the dynastic crisis (August 1953December 1955) when the regime enjoyed its highest peak of success - le when
105
AMAE R 3827/4 [Report about article "Le attitude espagnole" Le Meridional - La France, 17 October
1955]
As a matter of fact, certain French print media approached the Moroccan crisis, taken as a whole, in
pure political terms As such, it criticized Franco s doings as much as they pointed at the Quay d Orsay s
inertness and lack of tact in dealing with North African nationalisms "As well as Pans uses politics as a
screen for Franco's direct responsibility in the Moroccan problem, preferring to challenge the Arab
League, or Spam, or anything rather than colonialism and extremists, Madrid uses the policy to try to
gam some credit with the Moroccans" AMAE R 3827/4 [Clipping from article "Le jeu de Franco" Le
Marseillaise, 17 October 1955 ]
71
Morocco's public opinion, besides that of the international Arab community, had been
most inclined to support Spain's position in the colony. However, such a success, in
light of the rapid succession of events that compromised and neutralized it thereafter,
needs to be contextualized according to the significance it held to the regime at the time.
Essentially, the premise for the optimization of Spanish Morocco had rested on a
functional association: that Spain's reputation among Morocco's nationalism as a
friendly nation somehow annulled its status as a colonizing power. That association had
been favored, in many ways, by the turn of the events in both protectorates. Certainly,
since 1946 the regime had exploited to its fullest potential the trust granted by both
Morocco's nationalism and the international (Arab) community. This momentum, in
turn, had made possible the gradual enlargement of Franco's colonial influence while,
simultaneously, undermining France's rights to rule Morocco. However, the association
between contextual advantage and invulnerability against decolonization had been
essentially a representation of Franco's colonial theory.
As noted before, none of the regime's policies since 1946 had shown due consideration
for a hypothetical withdrawal from the colony. However, the issue of decolonization
had been quite present in the regime's rhetoric. The decomposition of the French rule in
North Africa had been in fact taken as example par excellence of the unsuitability of the
French colonial project. Such considerations, nonetheless, do not seem to have been
taken when involving Spanish Morocco and its status as a Spanish possession. In the
apparent contradiction between those two disparate stances lies in fact one of the chief
rationales in Franco's colonial thought and the key to understand the regime's
performance until November 1955.
72
Throughout the 1950s, any advance in the colonial position of Spain was taken in the
context of the desired continuation of the protectorate under Spanish rule. The success
of Franco's inverse mirror politics was thus meaningful to the regime as it furthered the
permanence of Spain as a colonizing power. By the same token, the achievements in
shifting Morocco's balance of power were durable inasmuch as France remained as a
moral and functional antithesis to the Spanish management.
According to the regime's colonial discourse the Residency's predicament was the
result of France's inability to comprehend its subjects. However, every maneuver in
Morocco had rested almost blindly upon the assumption that, despite the worsening of
the crisis, France would not change its colonial policy. The constant reenactment of that
assumption, catalyzed by the rewards reaped throughout optimization, nurtured a certain
atmosphere of delusion about the durability and viability of Spain's position. The
practical consequences of that delusion would become evident the very moment the
constants that contributed to its maintenance and development started to falter.
73
Chapter II. Crisis and Independence. The Franco
regime before the loss of Spanish Morocco (19551956)
T
he empowerment of the regime's standing in Morocco had spanned over
nearly a decade. During its last stage (August 1953-November 1955) the
regime's status as an influential power among Moroccans from both zones was
undisputed and surpassed that of France. Both the international Arab community and
nationalist trends from both protectorates praised Franco's Spain (and its Moroccan
performance) as the paradigm of European colonization in Africa. With regards to the
optimization process, this period stands as the chronological peak of Franco's
empowerment in Morocco.
The success reaped throughout this last stage of Spanish tenure would start to be
reversed in late November 1955, as a result of a radical u-turn in France's Moroccan
policy. The first resolutions of early Franco-Moroccan negotiations consisted on the
restitution of Mohammed V and the preparation for further negotiations toward French
Morocco's independence. The effects of the French diplomatic action in Morocco were
devastating to the regime's colonial position. In a matter of days, the entire basis
sustaining Franco's rhetoric and prowess in Morocco collapsed. In less than half a year,
Franco lost Morocco and along with it, the chance of consolidating his influence over
France.
The end of the regime's advantage in Morocco was precipitated, as it will be seen, by a
modification in France's colonial strategy in its protectorate. The optimization of
74
Franco's position however, had been a protracted process rather than the product of a
single and localized smart political move. As such, the revamping of Spanish Morocco
had been devised to turn into Spain's advantage several a priori detrimental agencies. In
spite of having benefited enormously from certain external developments (mainly, the
French predicament) optimization was for the most part propelled by the Francoist
action. By virtue of both its duration and the complexity of its realization, the regime's
optimization was a well-grounded achievement. This suggests that the Spanish
empowerment also entailed an equitable degree of durability. However, when
contrasting the length and nature in the amelioration of Franco's colonial standing with
its rapid collapse, a fundamental contradiction seems to arise; in fact, the rapid collapse
following the November 1955 events suggests that the regime's empowerment was far
from complete.
The absence of any analysis regarding flaws in the optimization process in Chapter II
has been deliberate and corresponds to a methodological rationale. The past chapter was
meant to explore the inception and gradual realization of Franco's empowerment in
Morocco. In reviewing now those signs indicating a potential downfall, this research
attempts to reflect in a more graphic manner the inner contradictions in the regime's
colonial policy. Following an analytical (rather than a chronological) criterion therefore
favors a better assessment of the optimization process, taken as a whole. This in turn
allows a better understanding of the core values in Franco's colonial thought at different
stages and reinforces the connection between them.
During the spread of the Moroccan crisis from December 1955 serious incongruities in
the regime's performance unfolded. This, along with the end of the Franco-Moroccan
crisis, ultimately provoked the collapse of the regime's standing and the loss of the
75
colony. Although those flaws would manifest themselves during the Spanish-Moroccan
crisis, they were in fact at the core of optimization since its very inception. The separate
analysis of those first signs of exhaustion during optimization thus emphasizes the
apparent dissociation between the changing colonial context and the dictatorship's
responses to it.
Despite the relative briefness of the Spanish-Moroccan crisis (November 1955-April
1956), the mobilization of the regime's resources throughout its duration was notable.
The management of the crisis encompassed those essential features already displayed
during the empowerment of Franco's position. Nonetheless, since the nationalist
advantage was basically gaining ground by discrediting Spain's reputation, the crisis
questioned the regime's legitimacy to stay in Morocco. In turn, the pressure exerted
made the inconsistencies in the regime's colonial discourse all the more conspicuous to
the Moroccan subject. Arguably, the most remarkable effect the Spanish-Moroccan
crisis had on the dictatorship (beside independence) was the public manifestation of a
disagreement on the general orientation of Spain's colonial policy.
A recognized divergence of opinion between the High Commissioner Garcia Valino and
Franco seriously compromised the dictatorship's credibility in and outside Morocco.
More importantly, the breaking of unanimity in colonial decision-making offers a
privileged insight on the regime's ideology regarding the decolonization process. The
two interpretations on how to handle Spanish Morocco's loss did not differ intrinsically
from each other. However, their nuances regarding the specifics of the crisis
management do provide a more substantiated ground to elucidate the regime's
performance and its true motivations.
76
The granting of independence to Spanish Morocco in April 1956 concluded the
Spanish-Moroccan crisis. However, the Spanish-Moroccan negotiations including
several key issues continued well after that date. Moreover, the regime's apparatus
effectuated yet a last reformulation of its colonial rhetoric in order to legitimize the last
years of Spanish tenure. Throughout the years of optimization and also during the crisis,
the Franco regime had been active in elaborating and updating a colonial discourse that
took advantage of several contexts. Though the protectorate had been lost, the will to
reformulate the image of Franco's Spain and its colonial action remained a top priority.
The following chapter continues to explore the dictatorship's colonial performance in
Morocco from the analytical premise of its imminent loss. The overhauling of a colonial
discourse for Spanish Morocco had been in the first place articulated as a response to
the threat posed by anti-colonial stances. The regime's post-independence reformulation
of that same colonial discourse therefore shared a common rationale and, in many ways,
completed the process initiated in 1946. Though the loss of the colony was to the
regime a contested possibility (even during the crisis), it constitutes the driving force of
the research and its main analytical reference.
77
I. A Sustainable Success? Signs of Exhaustion in the Regime's
Empowerment in Morocco
The optimization of the dictatorship's position in Morocco had followed since its
beginning in 1946 a rather steadfast progression. Both the enlargement of Spain's
prestige in the colony and the timid response of anti-colonial discourses among Spanish
Morocco's nationalist factions were indicators of the regime's success. By mid 1955,
the situation in Spanish Morocco contrasted almost diametrically to the one in the
French zone, where anti-colonial sentiments and social unrest had given way to
widespread instability and, ultimately, to a crisis of colonial rule. Taking the hardships
faced by the Residency as a reference, Francoist Spain had managed quite successfully
to dodge the impact of decolonization in Spanish Morocco.
The fruits of that advantage were the result of a protracted process of optimization
spanning for nearly a decade. Throughout the period 1946-1955 the regime undertook
an impressive mobilization of resources (diplomatic, political, and rhetorical) in order to
strengthen its foothold in Morocco. Gradually, the implementation of several policies
and the launching of an appealing colonial discourse contributed to spread an image of
colonial Spain devoid of the negative connotations attributed to other European powers
in Africa. The desired shift of opinion (Moroccan and international) regarding Spain's
status as a colonizing power would be effected throughout the late 1940s and first
1950s. By 1953, the dictatorship's message had been met. By neglecting Spain's
liability toward the advance of Spanish Morocco's sovereignty, the Arab League and
the colony's nationalist movement had de facto sanctioned the regime's facelift. Upon
that basis, the 1953 dynastic crisis would consolidate even further Spain's reputation as
benefactor of the Arab rights in Africa.
78
The hypothesis of a sustained empowerment in Franco's colonial position however
becomes somewhat problematic when analyzing the events following November 1955.
The rapidity in the collapse of the regime's colonial prestige poses a theoretical
contradiction, for it questions the integrity of the regime's colonial empowerment as a
consolidated phenomenon protracted throughout a decade. As the spread of the crisis to
Spanish Morocco evinces, the dictatorship's reputation experienced a dramatic decay
after November. By the beginning of 1956, Spain's position as a colonial power in
Morocco had lost its advantage and was subjected to the same anti-colonial discourse
that had targeted France since the late 1940s. Certainly, the pace and virulence of the
regime's downfall in Morocco suggests that the optimization process in late 1955 was
not settled. However, if the regime's colonial empowerment was not complete, how to
explain its success in deflecting criticism from Morocco's nationalism for so long?
Unlike French Morocco, the Spanish authorities did not experience the hardships
resulting from the spread of anti-colonial sentiments in its zone. As a matter of fact, the
regime's management was met with compliance by both the protectorate's nationalist
movement and the international Arab community. Throughout optimization, several
indicators had confirmed both an enlargement of Spain's influence and an amelioration
of its image among Moroccans. Despite the fact that most of the regime's policies
obtained satisfactory results, it cannot be taken for granted that signs of a possible
downfall manifested at some point during optimization.
In order to identify and evaluate those indicators, several considerations must be first
addressed. The reorientation of France's colonial policy in late 1955 was arguably the
most evident factor contributing to the regime's colonial collapse. This research has
already highlighted the centrality of French Morocco in the development of Franco's
79
inverse mirror rhetoric during the late 1940s and the 1950s. Notwithstanding the
dependence on French Morocco, that reliance was in great measure enhanced by the
character imprinted by the regime's colonial discourse - a discourse that had gone to
great lengths to inflate public perceptions against the French management. France's
decision to initiate independence negotiations, taken as an agency, was altogether
independent from Franco's schemes. However, the regime's exploitation of the binary
French Morocco-Spanish Morocco contributed decisively to the ultimate damage
caused to its colonial standing. The impact of the French colonial policy's reorientation
cannot be taken as an external agency per se. In lieu of this, it needs to be
contextualized according to the rhetorical reformulations that gave the measure a much
larger effect over the Spanish protectorate.
In addition, it is worth reviewing the circumstances in which the colonial revamping
took place. The regime's colonial empowerment had been launched in order to
counteract anti-colonial trends on two potential fronts - namely, Spain's vulnerability
due to the international isolation and its disadvantage in Morocco's colonial setting.
Since the regime did not contemplate the loss of the colony, any amelioration in Spain's
colonial rule in Morocco was interpreted exclusively according to a move-forward
logic. Failure in fulfilling the regime's goals therefore meant a return to a preoptimization status quo. It is plausible that, given the alternatives, a refusal to
acknowledge signs indicating a potential downfall became, to a certain extent,
customary. In point of fact, risk-taking had been an inherent component in the regime's
colonial policy since the beginning of the optimization process.
Several of the measures adopted in Morocco between 1946 and 1955 (the 1952 Decree
legalizing political parties, the support to French Morocco's insurgency) were in
80
essence the result of favoring foreseeable benefits over potential dangers. The prospects
of a modification of colonial Morocco's balance of power were indeed high and
therefore, so were the stakes. The overhauling of Spain's colonial rule was conceived by
Franco and his clique as an undertaking involving a great deal of political hazard. The
possibility of risks was thus a virtual part of the optimization's rationale; the fact that, in
most cases during the period 1946-1955, the regime's decisions met satisfactory results
should not nurture the assumption that Franco practiced a risk-free policy in Morocco.
One of the cornerstones in the overhauling of Spain's colonial rule in Morocco had been
its emphasis in enforcing an idealized image of itself. The constant reenactment of an
image reflecting the regime's interests, rather than its current colonial realities, obtained
good results; however, the determination to naturalize that rhetoric might have also
blurred the limits between a desirable colonial agenda and the historical framework
within which it had to be incorporated. The particular orientation of Franco's colonial
management since the late 1940s encouraged the potential dissociation between
discursive interpretations of Spanish Morocco and the colony's political and ideological
developments. As it will be explored throughout the chapter, this rationale lay at the
core of the relationship between the optimization's successes and its rapid collapse after
November 1955.
Any analysis assessing such flaws should also take into consideration how they were
perceived according to the regime's mindset. The risks involved in adopting the
regime's same criterion when addressing those flaws are nonetheless considerable.
From the beginning, the regime had displayed fixed assumptions about the viability and
nature of a purported optimization of its colonial rule. Whether they emanated directly
from Franco or from one of his proxies, those assumptions generally reflected the
81
regime's colonial ideology Since this research seeks to understand the motivations
behind the dictatorship's decisions in Morocco, its criteria for assessing signs of a
potential colonial setback should be incorporated However, another of the main traits in
the regime's Moroccan policy had been its proclivity to intertwine figurative and more
fact-based interpretations This association had grown larger in the same proportion as
Spain's colonial empowerment progressed, especially by the 1950s As a result, the
regime's capacity to evaluate the colonial situation (namely, potential threats to its
colonial rule) was diminished
In addition, assessing those flaws seems to posit a secondary methodological problem,
since the primary sources used for this research were produced or directed by the
dictatorship's official institutions (MAE, national press), it is logical to assume that they
reflected the regime's views The attention given to indicators of a potential recession in
the optimization process would have been therefore overlooked, if not entirely
dismissed However, although the regime underestimated the weight of those signs, its
bureaucratic apparatus did register them 107
In order to elucidate the rationales determining Spain's performance since November
1955, this research will take into account the regime's criteria for evaluating indicators
of a potential reversal in its colonial empowerment Those parameters will be
nonetheless contrasted (and when applicable, refuted) pursuing a more substantiated
understanding of the relation between colonial developments and how were they
interpreted by the regime
Most of the available reports registering evidence of flaws in the optimization of Spam s rule in
Morocco nonetheless lacked the analytical will to cross examine them with the official (i e , Franco s)
interpretation
82
Throughout the duration of the optimization process, a series of indicators insinuating a
potential collapse of the regime's standing in Morocco were manifested. While those
signs differed from each other in many respects, they all pointed out the same basic
conjecture: that a potential setback in the optimization process could take place lest a
series of propitious factors converged. In August 1955 the newspaper The Scotsman had
already forecasted the irreversible downfall of the regime's colonial standing if France
succeeded in offering a better platform for co-operation with the protectorate's
nationalists (by late 1955, mainly represented by the Istiqlal Party). Significant
advances toward French Morocco's self-determination, as the article pointed out, would
leave Spain "with an enclave of one million Moroccans under direct rule in a country of
nine million who [were] approaching self government".108 At the time this prediction
was made, in August 1955, France's negotiations for a dynastic restitution had just
started. This seems to have been the first extra-regime source noticing the
precariousness of Franco's position despite appearances.
The previous remark, though made in late 1955, identified an indicator for the possible
collapse of Spanish rule that went back to the beginnings of the optimization process.
The dependence on French Morocco since 1946 has been already designated as one of
the hallmarks in the overhauling of the Spanish rule. As suggested by the previous
comment and this research line, the sustainability of the regime's standing in 1955 was
contingent on the continuation of France's current colonial policy in its protectorate.
Theoretically speaking, that reliance on French Morocco had simply grown larger for
the period August 1953-November 1955 (the peak of optimization). Besides, although
the Sultan's removal boosted Franco's policies (and thus Spain's colonial reputation) to
AMAE R 3827/6 [Clipping from article "Exiled Sultan of Morocco. Spanish Zone joins in "Mourning""
The Scotsman. Edinburgh, 6 August 1955].
83
a historical maximum, the measure was much in continuity with the Residency's
management since the end of WWII. Taken as an agency in the empowerment of the
regime's position in Morocco, the French colonial policy had been uniform and a
constant throughout optimization.
If the regime's position was precarious in late 1955 when it experienced its highest
quotas of success, so it would have proportionally been at any point during
optimization. This hypothesis implies that the flaws compromising Franco's colonial
empowerment around 1955 were structural to the very logic of optimization. In order to
assess the validity of such an axiom the optimization process needs to be re-viewed
following a rather different analytical basis, stressing the connection between those
signs evincing an organic fault and the optimization's rationale.
Some of the earliest indicators of a decrease in Spain's newly-acquired colonial
reputation came from the international Arab community. In February 1954 the Egyptian
newspaper Al Misri questioned the purported identification between the interests of
Morocco's nationalist groups and those in Franco's agenda. In an article entitled "Who
moves Franco in Morocco?" it was suggested that the support provided to the Sultan's
cause simply sought "enlarging [Spain's] influence at the expense of France's." In the
pursuit of that agenda, the regime had been working toward the separation of its
protectorate from French Morocco. Such criticism was severe, for it basically accused
Spain of breaching the very same commitments that justified its colonial enterprise and
distinguished it from France's actions.
Indeed, although the remark exposed the nature of Franco's game in Morocco, this
indicator matters for addressing the key issue of Spain's reputation as a colonial power.
84
Regarding Franco's orchestration of the dynastic crisis the article refrained about the
dangers of "establishing a difference between one imperialism [the Spanish one] and
another" and warned the Arabs of a "colonized region [Spanish Morocco] of becoming
"the instrument of one imperialism against another (my italics)" l09
This piece of evidence supports the hypothesis that the regime's notoriety as a friendly
colonial power was not, as suggested by other sources, a fait accompli In addressing
Spain's colonial rule in Morocco as a case of imperialism, the article discredited the
regime's success in dissociating its colonial performance from the French one at a time,
in 1954, when it was theoretically at its highest
The lack of advance with regard to the progressive autonomy of Spanish Morocco also
was a motive for questioning the authenticity of the Spanish action In January 1954 The
Sunday Arab Observer criticized the pace of liberalization-oriented reforms to be
carried out in the protectorate, stressing the absence of "practical steps guaranteeing the
independence of Spanish Morocco" "If it truly wanted to strengthen its relations with
the Arab people", the periodical concluded, Spain should grant full independence to its
protectorate This course of action would "dispel any doubt" and avoid "mere
maneuvers that could originate opposite reactions to [Spain's] reputation in the Arab
world" 1 ' 0
AMAE R 3827/6 Comentanos prensa sobre actitud espahola en Marruecos Cairo, 4 February 1954
[Report on the article "Who Moves Franco in Morocco?" Al Misri Cairo, (?) January 1954] The
newspaper s views regarding the question of Franco s true interest in Morocco was, despite its political
insightfulness, far-fetched It believed that, as part of the 1953 American-Spanish Agreements, Franco
had promised the concession of several enclaves in Spanish Morocco s soil for U S military bases in
return for America s support to the protectorate s separation For a better understanding of the
centrality of American-Spanish negotiations at the beginning of 1954 see Arturo Jarque Ihiguez
"Queremos esas bases" El acercamiento de Estados Umdos a la Espaha de Franco (Madrid Universidad
deAlcala, 1998)
110
Ibid, [Report on the article (?) The Sunday Arab Observer Cairo, 31 January 1954]
85
A similar remark, albeit with a harsher tone of reprobation, was issued by Hamdi
Bahgaghgi, Iraq's Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1954 According to him, the situation
of Spanish Morocco resembled that of a colony "under the yoke of the colonizing
powers" and the Spanish action there was "the work oi oppression and exploitation (my
italics)" Due to the standstill in furthering measures toward the independence of the
Spanish zone, Iraq's public opinion and nationalist elements thus considered the
regime's colonial management as purporting the same anti-Muslim character manifested
by France If the Arab friendship was meaningful to Spain, argued the Iraqi MP, there
was nothing preventing Franco from the adoption of a more liberal policy regarding the
Arabs of Morocco
All the above-mentioned indicators shared a common denominator the insinuation that
by 1954 the international projection of the regime's colonial rhetoric was starting to
manifest symptoms of exhaustion This decline of Spain's reputation among the Arab
League's states was in appearance attributable to the lack of democratic advances in
Spanish Morocco Certainly, after the 1952 Decree legalizing political parties the
regime had been relying almost entirely on the rhetorical exploitation of the dynastic
cnsis The international Arab community had in the first place backed up Franco in
Morocco under the auspices of a colonial management that mirrored the Spanish-Arab
friendship rhetoric This had been the key premise explaining why the criticism
targeting France's colonialism in North Morocco was not extended to Spain
111
Bahgaghgi based the essence of Iraq s refusal to establish better relations with Spam on a simple
question of solidarity, he reasoned that "the problem of Arab Morocco matters to us [the Iraqi people]
as Arabs" Therefore "to practice with those [colonizing] powers an amicable policy [was] to support
them in their work of oppression and exploitation of our brothers [Morocco's population] " AMAE R
5003/90 "El Irak y Espana", (?) September 1954 [Report about a conversation between a Spanish
representative and Hamdi Bahgaghgi during a reception given to Arab heads of state at the Djebaih
Hotel, Cairo 12 September 1954]
86
As already seen, after 1948 the dictatorship had managed to maintain that support
mainly by the appeal of its colonial discourse, nonetheless, the issuing of the 1952
Decree suggests that Spain's rhetorical empowerment eventually needed to be
supplemented by a more fact-based policy in order to subsist In point of fact the
League had directly reciprocated the 1952 Decree when Ahmed Shukairy, the League's
Assistant Secretary-General, eulogized Spain's Moroccan policy after a visit to Tetouan
in 1953 112 So far, this had been the last token of endorsement provided by the League
with regard to Franco's Moroccan policy
Since then, the orientation of the regime s
policy in order to return the Arab support had been mostly rhetorical Precisely, that
rhetoric had consisted of a constant comparison with an exaggerated interpretation of
France's mismanagements in its protectorate
The continuous reference to the
Residency's impasse might have made more evident the true nature of Franco's game in
Morocco
The swing in the orientation of the regime's colonial policy to more rhetorical grounds
started to raise the suspicions of the international Arab community by the end of 1953
Two main reasons can be wielded in this respect first, the international approval of
Franco's colonial policy, though pivotal during the optimization's initial stages, became
less advantageous to the regime after November 1950 It is possible that, while still
considering the external Arab support beneficial, the regime concluded that the benefits
112
Presidential Directives, PD00406, U S Policy toward Spam 59 pp May 12 1954 In all likelihood, the
Arab League s reciprocity was also a response to Martin Artajo s extensive tour to the Arab world in
April 1952 See M D Algora Weber "Reahdades y contradicciones de la politica arabe del franquismo el
viaje del ministro de Asuntos Extenores Alberto Martin Artajo a Egipto y sus repercusiones en
Marruecos (abnl de 1952)" in Portugal, Espaha y Africa en los ultimos aen ahos, IV Jornadas de Estudios
Luso-Espaholes, Menda (1992) pp 211-224
It has to be noticed that the Arab League s official posture and that of individual Arab states did not
necessarily coincide Therefore, Ahmed Shukairy s praise is interpreted by this research according to the
parameters established in Chapter II - i e as representing the opinion of the Arab League on behalf of
its members
87
simply did not justify the diplomatic effort (at least, not to the degree of the one
undertaken between 1946 and 1953), second, as a consequence of the re-focusing of the
optimization process around 1953, the regime's discourse was designed to target
Morocco's nationalism specifically
The League and individual Arab states'
perspective, less clouded by the spiral of anti-French sentiments during the FrancoMoroccan crisis, may have felt less attracted by the appeal of the regime s binary
discourse This would explain why those agencies seem to have comprehended in a
clearer way Franco's true aspirations and the centrality played on them by the inversion
of Morocco's balance of power
By early 1954 the regime s diplomatic apparatus had already reckoned in Cairo (the
main centre of activities of both North African nationalist groups and the Arab League)
the existence of "very skeptical reactions against Spain regarding the evolution of the
Moroccan question" u
Those indicators were in fact to be added to "works
[periodicals] previously published which presented similar theories" '' 5 As stated by the
sources, the regime had known of signs that posed a theoretical threat to its colonial
status Recognizing the innocuousness in the power of potentially hostile extra-colonial
agencies and ignoring it were nonetheless two different things
Considering the existence of hostile Arab factions outside Morocco as mildly dangerous
seems to have been, according to the geopolitical circumstances, a wise political
Since 1947, the Cairo-Tetouan connection had run parallel to the regime s cultural partnership with
the Arab League and Egypt Abd el Jaliq Torres, mam nationalist figurehead in Spanish Morocco, had
been since the late 1940s in close contact with Egyptian pro-independence groups In point of fact, given
the inherent restrains existing under both French and Spanish rule, Morocco s nationalist groups often
coordinated their activities from Egyptian quarters M A Algora Weber Las relaaones hispano-arabes
durante el regimen de Franco La ruptura del aislamiento internaaonal (1946-1950) (Madrid MAE,
1995) pp 165-9
115
AMAE R 3827/6 Ibid
88
estimation. Nonetheless, however harmless they could have been to the regime, those
indicators were exposing the entire fabric of optimization and as such, deserved due
consideration. Besides, it has to be noticed that the reach of currents of opinion within
the Arab world included several contacts with Morocco's nationalist movements. The
remote possibility that those views were taken by the protectorate's nationalists justified
in itself a moe cautious approach than the one adopted by the regime.
Although the origin of those indicators conferred on them a low-risk status, their
message did contain a threat to the maintenance of the regime's colonial empowerment.
Certainly, exposing the inner motivations of Franco's support for the Sultan's cause
implied, in the context of North Africa's decolonization during the 1950s, questioning
the regime's capabilities to outstrip the anti-colonial onslaught. In terms of the anticolonial struggle, if Franco's drive was no different from the French one then the
Spanish stance vis-a-vis Moroccan nationalism was for all practical purposes procolonial. It was thus a matter of time that such a structural flaw brought the regime's
optimization back to the same predicament faced by Rabat.
Among the several aspects encompassing optimization, the High Commissioner's
double-game of stirring anti-colonial sentiments in French Morocco had been pointed
out as responsible in great measure for the November 1955 crisis. Certainly, the
maneuver's rationale involved a great deal of risk-taking (as indicated during the period
August 1953-November 1955) but also substantial benefits.
The support given to the Sultan's cause had been an adjustment of the regime's current
colonial discourse to Morocco's unexpected turn of events. As such, it represented a
continuation of Franco's modus operandi in the exploitation of the binary French
89
Morocco-Spanish Morocco However, from the perspective of North Africa s anticolomal struggle, the concept of furthering the Franco-Moroccan crisis by providing
emotional (and allegedly material) support to anti-French factions comprised an
essential contradiction The nationalist movements of French Morocco sought nothing
less than complete independence from France - by 1955, the worsening brought by the
dynastic crisis had actually reinforced that determination Among other things, that
implied that their political agenda targeted not just French colonialism, but European
colonialism as well Albeit they had made good use of the Spanish authorities' aid, this
did not imply that they considered Spain's presence in Morocco less colonial than
France's Until 1955 French Morocco's nationalism was probably carrying out its own
policies of optimization This consisted of benefiting from the Spanish authorities'
support and its more benevolent colonial policy " 6
The French, perhaps due to their own position within the conflict, had also pointed out
the contradictory character of supporting anti-colonialism abroad as a means of securing
Spain's colonial survival This had been insinuated even before the regime's pro-Sultan
rhetoric was developed In early January 1954, French Morocco's Secretary-General
Hutin had warned the Spanish representative in Rabat about the dangers implicit in the
lack of Franco-Spanish co-operation in Morocco " 7 Though not overtly stated, by the
early 1950s that threat could only come from nationalist factions from both zones
According to this rationale France and Spain were, despite their differences, colonizing
nations with an ultimate common goal to maintain their presence in Morocco The
115
The anti-colonial struggle fully spread to Spanish Morocco the moment Franco s colonial rhetoric was
publicly exposed in December 1955 This fact provides ground to assume that, at the same time that El
Istiqlal (and other nationalist parties) played its cards regarding their position toward Franco s Spain, it
also welcomed to a certain degree the regime s initiatives during the first 1950s
117
AMAE R 3827/6 Conversacion con el Secretano General Hutin y con el Consul de los Estados Unidos
Rabat, 13 January 1954
90
absence of a unitary front in this regard thus damaged Spain's interests as much as it
would damage France's during the dynastic crisis. Interestingly enough, the
identification of a mutual goal uniting both nations against the advance of anti-colonial
stances would be eventually wielded by the High Commissioner in his rapprochement
to the Residency. This conception would in turn constitute one of the reasons for the
Franco-Garcia Valino divergence and a useful analytical basis for examining the
motives behind the regime's actions during the period August 1953-November 1955.
Spanish support to the nationalist cause gave the French solid evidence of the effects of
that lack of intra-colonial co-operation regarding the nationalist uproar. In a rather
explicit manner, Le Monde criticized a Francoist government which "so imperialist, [it]
justifies the insurgency; so catholic, [it] has become the best supporter of Muslim
fanaticism; so anti-communist [...], [it] organizes a disorder prone to the communist
propaganda and the Soviet designs of compromising the protection of the Western
Mediterranean." The editorial, already toying with the idea of a French withdrawal,
insightfully wondered how long Spain would remain in the colony once the French were
expelled from Rabat and accused Franco's Francophobia as driven by old-fashioned and
anachronistic grudges.118
In addition to the incongruity of the regime's colonial policy, this indicator also
recognized Franco's Francophobia as a driving force behind Spain's colonial
performance. According to the French media, the regime's management incorporated,
along with purely colonial considerations, European-centered conceptions of power
(Franco's Franco-Spanish rivalry). This implied that France had, prior to November
118
"The Francoist policy [...] still belongs to the times of the Napoleonic wars and/or echoes the
sentiments of Charles V". AMAE R 3827/4 [Clipping from editorial "L'Espagne et nous. L'histoire d'une
epee" Le Monde. Paris, 4 December 1955].
91
1955, a well-grounded understanding of the nature of Franco's colonial game.
Moreover, it is likely that this knowledge somehow determined the u-turn in France's
colonial policy - the opening of the Franco-Moroccan negotiations and the dynastic
restitution in November 1955.
The pro-Sultan policy had earned the regime the support of Spanish Morocco's
nationalists during the dynastic crisis, but had also set a dangerous precedent. The
regime's colonial advantage during the dynastic crisis had been largely sustained by the
exploitation of Franco's inverse mirror rhetoric. That heavy reliance on French
Morocco's developments has been already identified by several indicators as
encompassing a fundamental contradiction. The regime's colonial position was, in the
context of advancing decolonization in North Africa during the 1950s, simply not
sustainable; the colonial nature of the regime's position in Morocco inevitably had to
turn Spain's strategic advantage into an overpowering hindrance.
The above-mentioned indicators had all pointed out conclusions inferred from the
analysis of the circumstances surrounding the regime's empowerment during the
dynastic crisis. Although the regime's actions following November 1955 did not reflect
that due consideration was given to those indicators, their political forecasting had been
known by the regime via its diplomatic apparatus. As a matter of fact, a limited number
of indicators expressing similar reserves had originated within the regime itself. Though
they were certainly but a few, their views represent a valuable chance to examine the
inner conditions under which Franco chose to ignore the risks and face a potential
colonial downfall.
92
According to Morales Lezcano, Luis Carrero Blanco (Franco's second in command)
himself had expressed to Franco his disapproval about the High Commissioner's proSultan maneuver since 1954 In his opinion, to sponsor the nationalist cause in Morocco
was politically inconsistent, for it would in the long run compromise Spain's interests in
North Africa Any concession to Morocco's nationalists culminating in the colony's
independence would therefore guarantee future scenarios for
Spanish-Moroccan
conflicts - most notably, territorial claims to the Spanish frontier cities of Ceuta and
Melilla " 9 Those views had originated within the regime's ruling elite and as such,
presented a concern about the ambiguity of flirting with Morocco's nationalism among
Franco's military clique during optimization Furthermore, Carrero's analysis of the
colonial situation held, despite the distortion caused by his proclivity to associate
political activism with communist threat, a similar insight displayed by other external
(outside-the-regime) indicators
A unique example of internal indicators that overtly reiterated the inconsistencies of the
regime's colonial policy during the optimization period emanated from the Sociedad de
Estudios Internacionales
y Coloniales
of Madrid (SEIC)
This non-governmental
institution had been founded in 1934 by Jose Md Cordero Torres, the most renowned of
Spain's Africanista apologists
12
In spite of this, the body had in fact carried out a
rather critical work in submitting recommendations about the regime's Moroccan
policy
Cited in Francisco Morales Lezcano El final del Protectorado hispano-frances en Marruecos El desafio
del nacionalismo marroqui (1945-1962) (Madrid Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Histoncos, 1998) p 161
120
Fernando de Salas Lopez "Cincuenta Aniversano de la Sociedad de Estudios Internacionales (SEI)" in
Revista de Estudios Internacionales 6/1 (January March 1985) pp 136 43
93
As early as in December 1952 the SEIC had issued a report in which the position of the
regime apropos of the internationalization of the Moroccan question was examined By
and large, the SEIC advocated for an association policy (instead of interventionist) that
pursued a higher degree of Spanish-Moroccan co-operation in several key fields such as
economic development, international projection, security or law Among other
considerations,
the
report
assessed
the
potential
dangers
implicit
in
the
internationalization of North Africa's anti-colonial movement by late 1952 and warned
the regime about the necessity "to act swiftly and take measures to tackle the [colonial
rule's] disintegration process "121 What made those recommendations relevant was the
fact that they already entailed a degree of awareness about the scale and projection of
the anti-colonial phenomenon that was not shared, according to the Moroccan policy, by
the Spanish authorities It is worth noting that at the time of report, December 1952, the
amelioration of the regime's colonial rule and its reputation among Morocco's
nationalists were in full expansion The recommendations were not carried out during
the Spanish tenure in the protectorate However, the fact that most of them were
verbatim applied in the years following independence in 1956 reinforces the pertinence
and insightfulness of the SEIC's proposals 122
In February 1953, the SEIC issued a report openly questioning the feasibility of a
reform package for the Spanish colonies and for the Spanish protectorate in Morocco
specifically Although a priori requesting the High Commissioner's opinion, the
reform's economic aspects were disregarded as "amply outstripping the economic
capabilities of those territories [Spain's colonies] and their petty population" Pohtico-
121
M 5 Concepcion Ybarra Ennquez de la Orden Espaha y la descolonizaaon del Magreb Rivahdad
hispano-francesa en Marruecos (1951-1961) (Madrid UNED, 1998) pp 114-5
94
juridical measures such as an alliance with the Caliphate, the sending of Caliph's
delegates to international organs or the suppression of the colony's duty free policy
were in the SEIC's opinion "unachievable in as long as the protectorate's status
remained", besides, many of the proposals "opposed the [international] treaties in force
[and] were not attainable insofar as the country [Morocco] did not gain its
independence"123
Once more, the SEIC displayed a far more realistic approach to colonial affairs than the
one displayed by the regime's policy In the first place, the report had considered the
development plans as far-fetched and basically incompatible with the protectorate's
realities in terms of resources and manpower The thorough assessment of the feasibility
of the reform's proposals authenticated not just the SEIC's colonial expertise, but also
that there existed outside Franco's clique reliable currents of opinion that were
concerned about potential setbacks in Spanish Morocco's optimization, in the second
place, the SEIC seems to have appreciated better the intimate relationship between the
geopolitical context (1 e , the decolonization phenomenon) and the developments taking
place in the protectorate In point of fact, the report had reiterated the urgency of a reassessment of the reform plan "by reason of the international circumstances "124
Despite the appearances, those alternative views did not conceal currents of opinion
contrary to Spain's colonial rule but rather, the opposite The SEIC was in fact the
rhetorical platform of Cordero Torres, whose reputation as an assured Africanista was
beyond doubt The evidence put forward by reports of this kind suggests that some
123
AMAE R 4995/4 Nota para el director general Madrid, 12 February 1953 [Report submitted by the
Sociedad de Estudios Internacionales y Coloniales de Madrid about a reform project for Morocco,
Spanish Sahara and Equatorial Guinea]
124
\bid By early 1953 the Arab League s members had increased their political pressure in order to
include the "Moroccan question" in the U N General Assembly debates
95
Africanista sectors disagreed with the way in which several aspects within the
optimization process had been undertaken. Taken as a whole, the SEIC's dissent was
sending the regime a cautionary warning with a clear message: a) that certain potential
elements were already compromising the stability of the regime's position in Morocco
and; b) that the threats posed by some of those elements had been favored by Franco's
(and by extension, the Spanish authorities') colonial ideology.
Moreover, the above-mentioned indicators had already identified by early 1953 two
potential elements of mismanagement in the regime's colonial performance, a
delusional approach to the colony's realities and an underestimation of the prowess of
anti-colonial sentiments, in and outside Morocco. Both elements outline what seems to
have been a recurrent pattern of behavior: the increasing dissociation between the realm
of Morocco's developments and the articulation of the regime's responses to it.
96
II. Franco Exposed. The Regime and the Spread of the Moroccan
Crisis (November 1955-April 1956)
Following the Sultan's deposition, the situation faced by the Residency in French
Morocco had become increasingly untenable By the beginning of 1955 Resident
General Francis Lacoste had already pointed out the wrongdoings in the management of
the crisis Arguably for the first time, the Resident suggested that in order to reach a
resolution to the Moroccan stalemate, a general re-orientation in France's colonial
policy was needed 125 Notwithstanding the evolution of the Franco-Moroccan crisis, the
change of heart in France Moroccan policy was the reflection of wider phenomena in
both the country's imperial and metropolitan fronts
On the one hand, the rapid deterioration of the French colonial rule in North Africa had
become, by 1955, a matter of the utmost urgency Mirroring the situation in Morocco, in
Tunisia popular anti-French sentiments had widely extended and the insurgency had
pursued a policy of sabotage and urban terrorism since at least early 1952 By the late
1955, even after formally granting internal autonomy with the 1954 Declaration of
Carthage, the French colonial authority in the colony was nearly disintegrated
126
In
Algeria, the civil war initiated in November 1954 had escalated with such virulence and
international projection that it became the example par excellence of the collapse of the
French rule
As a matter of fact, the closure of the Franco-Moroccan crisis had also been propelled
by events that transcended the scope of colonial North Africa
During the 1955
Bandung Conference, the situation of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria had received a
125
Ybarra Ennquez Ibid, p 198
Anthony Clayton The Wars of French Decolonization (London Longman, 1994) pp 88-93
97
great deal of attention from the so-called non-aligned nations, which urged the French
government to end its colonial occupation without delay The international attention
given to the conference conferred on the anti-French criticism a global dimension that
increased the pressure for a solution to France's North African juncture 127
On the other hand, the worsening of the colonial crisis since 1954 had also brought a
wave of political turmoil to France The question of the colonial debacle in North Africa
had monopolized the country's political debate to the extent of overshadowing other
national considerations The collapse of the government of Pierre Mendes-France in
February 1955 had been in great measure precipitated by its inability to find a solution
to the deterioration of the French rule in the Maghreb colonies By late 1955, that
combined pressure would determine the new government of President Edgar Faure to
consider a u-turn in its Moroccan policy
In order to safeguard its interest in the colony, in August France President Faure
resumed negotiations with the exiled Sultan in Madagascar offering a dynastic
restoration and a settlement to Morocco's nationalist demands The course of events
succeeded quickly during the following months, culminating on November 6th with the
Celle Saint-Cloud Agreements, where the u-turn in France's colonial policy in Morocco
was made public, France announced not just the return of Mohammed V but also the
"In view of the unsettled situation in North Africa and of the persisting denial to the peoples of North
Africa of their right to self determination, the Asian African Conference declared its support of the rights
of the people of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to self determination and independence and urged the
French Government to bring about a peaceful settlement of the issue without delay " "Asian-African
Conference Final Communique Bandung, 24 April 1955" extracted from Dr Roeslan Abdulgani The
Bandung Connection The Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955 (Singapore Gunung Agung, 1981)
98
formation of a throne Council that would pave the way for the concession of
independence
The November statement dismantled the fruits of the regime's optimization almost
instantly
In the light of imminent concessions toward independence in French
Morocco, Franco's pro-legitimacy standing and timid liberalization lost all credibility
among the Spanish protectorate's nationalism and population In a matter of days, the
anti-colonial sentiment that had been shaking the foundations of the French rule erupted
in Spanish Morocco and brought the regime s position back to pre-optimization stages
A. The Juridical Manacle. The 1912 Treaty and Spain's Colonial Status in
Morocco
The spread of the crisis to Spanish Morocco also revitalized a factor that made the
regime s position even weaker the binding character of the 1912 Franco-Spanish
treaties The concession of Northern Morocco to Spain had been sketched for the first
time in the Franco-Moroccan 1912 Treaty of Fez, a negotiation in which Spain had not
participated In it France agreed, upon the institutionalization of a French protectorate in
Morocco and the preservation of the territorial integrity of the Shenfian Empire, to
consider Spain's interests by reason of both "its geographical position and territorial
possessions in the Moroccan coast"
129
It would not be until the signing of the Franco-
Spanish Algeciras Act on November 27 th that such concessions were formalized
The existence of two treaties, one Franco-Moroccan and one Franco-Spanish, created a
juridical ambiguity about the nature of the colonial prerogatives that Spain had over its
Ramon Salas Larrazabal El protectorado de Espaha en Marruecos (Madrid MAPFRE, 1992) pp 280-1
Anne Dulphy Le politique de la France a I egard d I Espagne de 1945 a 1955 Entre ideologie et
reahsme (Paris Mmistere des Affaires Etrangeres, 2002) p 685
99
protectorate This originated an interpretative controversy that lay at the core of FrancoSpanish relationships in Morocco According to the French theory, the concession of a
zone of influence in Northern Morocco was understood as a trusteeship, a delegation of
authority As such, the powers bestowed upon Spain in its protectorate were the product
of a private agreement between both nations and not an extension of the 1912 Fez
Treaty Spain s rights as a colonizing power were thus to be circumscribed within the
institutional framework of the French protectorate
Unlike France, the Spanish
authorities had traditionally regarded its colony as a co-protectorate in which Spain held
similar status and attributions to the ones exercised by France in hers, but for the
exception of the protectorate s relations with "official foreign agents "
Although briefly questioned during the 1920s Rif wars,
the Spanish interpretation had
been favored by the de facto internal autonomy enjoyed by the High Commissioner in
Spanish Morocco However, the colonial status of Spain in Morocco remained unsettled
(l e open to two different interpretations) until shortly before independence in 1956
From the late 1940s, the dispute over the juridical dependence of Spanish Morocco on
the French protectorate was naturally incorporated in Franco's plans for shifting the
colonial balance of power The opening of the dynastic crisis in August 1953 gave the
regime the chance to reformulate its colonial demands in this respect within the
favorable context of the French-Moroccan crisis After news of the coup d'etat reached
Salas Larrazabal Ibid, p 109
In 1924, the Spanish withdrawal from a great part of its Moroccan territory during the uproar of the
Rif s rebellion had triggered rumors that the Pnmo de Rivera government was studying the cession of its
rights in the Spanish zone to France It seems that the idea had been well received by France s colonist
clique (among them, General Resident Lyautey) The evacuation was considered a breach of Spain s
responsibilities in Morocco and as such, was taken as evidence of France s right to occupy Spanish
Morocco Susana Sueiro Seoane Espaha en el Mediterraneo Pnmo de Rivera y la "cuestion marroqui",
1923-1930 (Madrid UNED, 1992) pp 146-75
132
100
Tetouan, Garcia Valino officially complained to France maintaining that political
actions of the sort "[could not] take place in Morocco without the Spanish consent" and
that, by doing so, "the Spanish presence had been ignored"133 It was precisely dunng
the last stage in the regime's optimization that the question became more of a hindrance
to Franco's goals m the colony
Following the Sultan s removal, Franco's thesis of an autonomous Spanish protectorate
with full competences often surfaced in pro-legitimist rhetoric about Morocco's
territorial indivisibility The optimization process notwithstanding, the contractual
character of the Spanish position in Morocco kept hampering any possibility for a
breakthrough, according to the international treaties Spain could grant only limited
concessions, the protectorate's international relationships were entirely France's
prerogative, and more importantly, the regime had no power to grant independence to
its zone The unilateral independence of Spanish Morocco had been in fact suggested by
several Arab nations during the dynastic crisis Despite the binding character of the
1912 Treaty, it was then argued, Spain was entitled to grant independence to its
protectorate since such treaty "had been in fact [already] breached by France by
enforcing the dethroning of the Sultan"134 Since Franco's agenda did not include a
withdrawal, the 1912 Treaties' juridical nature was utilized to legitimize the regime's
lack of decisive steps in furthering Spanish Morocco s independence
Victor Morales Lezcano El final del protectorado hispano-frances en Marruecos El desafio del
nacionalismo marroqui (1945-1962) (Madrid Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islamicos en Madrid, 1998)
pp 156-7
AMAE R 3827/6 Comentanos prensa sobre actitud espanola en Marruecos Cairo, 4 February 1954
For other instances of international Arab support to the granting of independence to Spanish Morocco
review Section II in Chapter II
101
Using the advantage offered by France's infringement during the coup d'etat, the
regime had continued to push for recognition of its colonial rights at the international
level. This was a logical step, since a considerable part of the optimization's success had
originated in the exploitation of the international context. For years, Franco had been
seeking the inclusion of Spanish Morocco as an independent colony in several
international organs. It had been successfully accepted as associated member in the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and International Telecommunication
Union (ITU) - always with the adamant opposition of France. The French stance was
simple: Spain could not seek international representation for Spanish Morocco other
than in the form of a "delegation" within the French protectorate, the only protectorate
in Morocco.
The pursuit of the admission of Spanish Morocco as an autonomous colony was
therefore used by Franco as a means to outstrip the juridical ambiguity of Spain's status
in the colony. Precisely due to the nuanced nature of this consideration, the regime did
not seek the mere inclusion of Spanish Morocco but rather, its formal induction under
the specific denomination of "Spanish protectorate". The juridical formula in force,
"Spain's zone in Morocco", was regarded as inadequate, since it suggested "juridicalinternational subordination" to French Morocco.
A half-victory in this respect was
obtained when in May 1955 France allowed the Spanish protectorate to be admitted into
the World Health Organization (WHO) as "Zone of the Spanish protectorate in
Morocco".
However, once Spain was admitted into the U.N. in December 1955, the
Ybarra Enriquez Ibid., pp. 120-1.
AMAE R 3970/56. Denominacion aplicable a nuestra zona marroqui en los Organismos
internacionales. Madrid, 16 December 1955.
Ybarra Enriquez Ibid.
102
substitution of such terms by the plain "Spanish protectorate" became a constant
demand of the Spanish representatives.
According to the regime's thesis, the 1912 Treaty of Fez (article I) and Treaty of Madrid
(articles II and VI) did not compromise "more ambitious interpretations due to [the]
vagueness [of their wording]." Therefore, by virtue of the juridical-international
practices, the denomination that best encompassed Spain's binding competences on
behalf of the Moroccan people was that of "Zone of the Spanish protectorate in
Morocco". This was done in order to obtain international recognition to what was
considered "the autonomy of [Spain's] zone and the independence of its protecting
action (my italics)."1
The semantic character of this enterprise clearly mirrored other initiatives implemented
during optimization - namely, the adoption of a terminology specially crafted to convey
the purported traits of the regime's colonial performance. However, by late 1955 the
juncture at which the dictatorship found its colonial standing was entirely different and,
overall, far more desperate. The juridical ambiguity of Spain's colonial status had
represented a bitter remainder of France's prevalent position in Morocco since the
establishment of the protectorate; nonetheless, its potential for compromising the
regime's colonial survival had not yet materialized. This was mainly because the
question of French Morocco's independence (or rather, the possibility that France could
actually grant it) had never been a reality neither in the regime's colonial schemes nor in
the nationalist ones prior to November 1955. To that date, the worn-out reputation of
France had blocked any other negative considerations from affecting the regime's
optimization.
138
AMAE R 3970/56 Ibid.
103
Once the announcement of negotiations for independence was made, the contractual
character of the 1912 Treaty fully unleashed the damage to Franco's position. If France,
from the perspective of its superior colonial status, granted independence, all Franco's
political capital (i.e. issuing independence to its protectorate before the French) became
a dead letter. Moreover, Spain's juridical impotence to further independence in its zone
had a retroactive effect: it not only thwarted the regime's post-November reputation but
also implied that its previous disposition toward independence was devoid of juridical
power and was, therefore a bluff.
B. The Franco-Garcia Valino Divergence (December 1955)
The effects caused by France's November Agreements were irreversible and were felt
almost immediately in Spanish Morocco. Most of the advances in the amelioration of
the regime's standing up to that point were based on the contrast between France's and
Spain's stances vis-a-vis the nationalist question. The announcement of negotiations for
granting independence to French Morocco therefore dismantled the assumptions
(Franco's mind regarding Morocco's nationalism and his role as mediator in the FrancoMoroccan conflict) that had gained the regime its reputation among the colony's
nationalist parties. By extension, Franco lost the advantage that had characterized
Morocco's intra-colonial dynamics since the opening of the dynastic crisis in August
1953. As a whole, the u-turn in France's Moroccan policy put Spain in an extremely
awkward position.
Notwithstanding the implication of the French maneuver, the damage inflicted on the
regime's credibility was heightened by its own actions following the November
announcement. In December 1955, in public statements to the Spanish media, Franco
104
and Garcia Valino manifested their different approaches with regard to the settling of
the upcoming crisis. This disagreement constituted a milestone in the dictatorship's
history in Morocco. On the one hand, a divergence of opinion within the decisionmaking regarding Morocco had been publicly stated. For a regime that had displayed
such a strong fixation on mastering public perceptions about its colonial performance
(Spanish, Moroccan, and international), the emergence of two conflicting opinions
within Spain's colonial establishment was certainly a novelty; on the other hand, this
divergence suggested to other players (Moroccan, nationalists, the international Arab
community and France) a lack of unanimity that proved to be very detrimental to the
regime's goals. As a matter of fact, the Franco-Garcia Valino divergence deepened even
further a crisis of colonial legitimacy that had already broken out following the
November events and that would wipe out any remnants of the advantage gained during
optimization.
The divergence of opinion between the High Commissioner and the dictator also
provides, from a methodological point of view, a rare and valuable opportunity to
explore the regime's colonial ideology. By means of contrasting Franco's and Garcia
Valino's approaches, the ideological weight of Spain's Africanista experience can be reassessed within the context of North Africa's decolonization process. In doing so, new
interpretations can be offered to elucidate the seeming dissociation between the
regime's responses during the November 1955-April 1956 crisis and Morocco's anticolonial dynamics.
According to Ybarra Enriquez, the changes in French Morocco revealed to the High
Commissioner the true precariousness of the regime's colonial position. In turn, Garcia
Valino realized that the only option the regime had left in order to secure its influence in
105
Morocco was to anticipate France's moves and grant independence to its protectorate
before the French did the same to theirs. These recommendations were reported to
Franco.139 In a statement given to the press on December 21 st Garcia Valino confirmed
his views by stating that "the new policy for the French zone should not have more
repercussions in ours [Spanish Morocco] than the natural desire for achieving the same
political freedoms and being informed of the Spanish plan in this respect (my italics)."
During the interview, the High Commissioner was asked directly about the certainty of
Morocco's future independence. ° The fact that his reply at no point contradicted the
validity of such an axiom suggests that he had been reconciled to the imminence of
independence.
On his part, Franco summarized his views about Morocco's new developments in
several interviews to both international and Spanish newspapers throughout December.
The dictator considered the so-called Faure plan (France's independence plans) a
deliberate attempt to take over and extend France's influence over the Spanish zone.
The notion itself of independence within interdependence (the juridical framework of
the French concession) was in Franco's opinion a "contradicting and conflicting
political formula." The dictator warned that Spain "would never allow itself to be
supplanted [...] under the pretext of pseudo-interdependence." Franco argued that, due
to the Maghreb people's "traditional proclivity to solve its differences with gun
Ybarra Enriquez Ibid., pp. 238-9.
"Espaha puede colaborar con el futuro Marruecos en todos los ordenes". Pueblo, 21 December 1955,
p. 4.
106
powder", the introduction of European-like democratic measures in Morocco would be
"disastrous to its future and the conservation of its independence "'
l
The joint issuing of both statements stained the regime's official stance regarding the
development of the Franco-Moroccan negotiations with a note of division There were
never any doubts, whether in Spain or abroad, about the preeminence of Franco's views
over those of his subordinates
l 2
However, the fact that the dictator's direct
representative in Morocco offered a different approach casted doubt upon the coherency
of the Spanish colonial policy The extent of such disagreement was greatly amplified
by the media coverage received In the context of the regime's immanent informative
blackout, a divergence of opinion of this scale attracted a great deal of international
attention at a time when the dictatorship's colonial standing had been already
debilitated
As a matter of fact, to question the regime's credibility as donor of Moroccan
nationalism was to cast doubt on Franco and the trustworthiness of his personal appeal
to the Arab world as well Since the dictator had personally embodied the traits of the
Spanish colonizing action, to target the latter was to target Franco himself By publicly
stating his determination to postpone Morocco's independence, Franco "[had] dropped
[the] Muslim mask" that had characterized the regime's rhetoric and his own throughout
optimization
The overlapping of Franco's colonial persona and Spain's Moroccan
performance intensified the damage caused by the Franco-Garcia Valino divergence
141
"Nuestra ejecutona ante el pueblo de Marruecos es bien distinta de la francesa" Arriba, 16
December 1955, pp 1-2
Antonio Costa Pinto "Single party, cabinet and political decision-making in fascist era dictatorships
comparative perspectives" in Costa Pinto (ed ) Ruling Elites and Decision Making in Fascist-era
Dicatatorships (New York Columbia University Press, 2009) pp 215 53
143
Luella J Hall The United States and Morocco, 1776-1956 (N J The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1971) p
1033
107
The dictator s personal ideology attracted most of the international attention to such an
extent that it seemed to overshadow the responsibility of the High Commissioner s
performance in the collapse of the regime s standing
Any slip on Franco's part apropos of Morocco obviously benefited the colonial position
of France The lack of congruence in the regime's responses came to reinforce the
French thesis that Madrid had pursued a contradictory policy in Morocco by siding with
the nationalists The Franco-Garcia Valino divergence thus gave France the opportunity
to discredit the regime's colonial reputation and turn Morocco's balance of power again
to France's side Following that rationale, the French press would emphasize the
differences in Franco's and the High Commissioner s responses and attnbute them to
the restlessness and confusion before the November events Le Monde highlighted the
"puzzlement of the diplomatic world" regarding Franco's stances and accused the
dictator of political stubbornness 144 In several headlines, the dictator's opinions were
interpreted as symptomatic of "Franco's turnabout" or plainly "against the unification
and independence of Morocco"
5
One newspaper even stated that Franco had used the
November situation "to express, once again, his hatred for democracy" l 6
Internally, the differences between Franco and Garcia Valino were promptly amended
by the issuing of subsequent statements where the High Commissioner altered his tone
to resemble that of the dictator In the context of an acute loss of legitimacy after the
French political u-turn, the regime could not afford an image of colonial Spain that
lacked decisiveness and uniformity in its dealings with incoming crisis Although the
144
AMAE R 4460/30 [Clipping from article "Le Maroc et I Espagne" Le Monde, 17 December 1955]
Ibid [Clippings from articles "L Espagne refuse I mdependance au Maroc estimant "diabohque"
I initiative de la France" and "L Espagne contre I unification du Maroc et son mdependance" La Presse
del Dia, 16 December 1955 and 17 December 1955]
Ibid [Clipping from article "Le Maroc et Franco" L Action del Dia, 18 December 1955]
108
disagreement was corrected, its potential for discrediting the regime's colonial
reputation could not be suppressed
While the damage the Franco-Garcia Valino divergence did to the regime's colonial
standing was evident, what caused it remains less clear Up to November 1955, the
available evidence suggests that Franco and Garcia Valino shared almost identical
views about what elements compromised the regime's colonial survival and what
needed to be done to counter them Though concerns about the long-term feasibility of
the High Commissioner's actions could have existed, Franco had supported them Given
the dictator's utter control of Spain's decision-making, it is unlikely that the High
Commissioner's policies had continued to be exerted had Franco seriously disagreed
with them
In many ways, Garcia Valino had been the facilitator that made possible
what the dictator had longed for the overhauling of Spain's rule in Morocco at the
expense of France's All things considered, his Moroccan policy had been, by and large,
"useful and pleasant" to Madrid x
Even if the High Commissioner had gone too far,
for all practical purposes his and Franco's colonial agendas during optimization
virtually matched each other
Notwithstanding the lack of conclusive evidence illustrating a divergence of opinions
prior to November 1955, views of the kind are hardly produced overnight Since their
opinions were arguably the extrapolation of both Franco's and the High
Ybarra Enriquez posits that, while concern had been raised in Madrid about the High Commissioner s
colonial policy. Franco had chosen "not to force the situation" Ybarra Enriquez Ibid, pp 105-9 During
the Spanish-Moroccan crisis Franco had affirmed in a private interview that he might have to replace
Garcia Valino but that he did not seem to find "the suitable person to substitute him" However, given
the rapidity of the events since November 1955, a replacement at this juncture (January 1956) would
have not been a wise political move Teniente General Francisco Franco Salgado Araujo Mis
conversaaones pnvadas con Franco (Barcelona Planeta, 1976) pp 157 8
148
Dulphy, Ibid , pp 717-8
109
Commissioner's colonial ideologies and experiences, hints of their differences may
have been displayed in some degree before. Therefore, the cross-examination of each
individual's attitude regarding key topics in colonial theory should provide a working
hypothesis to identify the rationale(s) that determined a deviation from the common
Africanista branch - the ideological metanarrative including both the dictator's and the
High Commissioner's mindsets. This would ascertain whether the overall dissension
was simply a matter of perspective about how to manage a colonial collapse or a
fundamental contradiction between both points of view. Before the nature of the
Franco-Garcia Valino divergence can be addressed though, an accurate assessment of
the discrepancies has to be carried out first.
At this point it is worth emphasizing that Garcia Valino's better disposition to face
Morocco's independence cannot be interpreted in absolute terms. As it would be made
manifest, by late 1955 the idea of granting independence was conceived according to
the general lines formulated by the French idea of interdependence; in other words, the
continuation of the colonial rule by indirect means in order to safeguard the metropolis'
economic and geopolitical interests. By late 1955, Garcia Valino had actually made
arrangements in this respect in his negotiations with Spanish Morocco's main
nationalist leader Abd-el-Khaleq Torres.
9
Regarding this, the High Commissioner's
and Franco's stances were at bottom closer to each other than they might have seemed
at first sight. When considering that neither of them really conceived real autonomy for
Morocco, the central question of whether or not granting independence was not as much
a matter of content as it was a matter of form.
Jean Wolf Les secrets du Maroc Espagnol. L'epopee d'Abd-el-Khaleq Torres (Paris: Balland-Eddif,
1994) pp. 285-306.
110
In particular, there existed a dissension about the desirable pace the Moroccan
independence process should follow after the November events Franco's position, on
the one hand, advocated a gradual liberalization in the build-up of Morocco s
independence On several occasions, Franco had reiterated his idea of independence "by
stages" as the only political formula that would guarantee a durable and stable future for
Morocco 15 As a matter of fact, the goal of continuing "to prepare the [Moroccan]
people and to take them toward independence and self-government" was in Franco s
colonial rhetoric a duty that Spain was bound to honor
l
Hence, the dictator despised
the French initiative and portrayed it as a forced and artificial political arrangement - a
solution born out of pure necessity, rather than the product of thorough planning as
demanded by the protecting nation s commitments
Garcia Valino, on the other hand, did not seem to question the celerity of Morocco's
independence per se In point of fact, his response indicates that he took the situation as
a fait accompli Unlike Franco, Garcia Valino's comments suggest that he understood
(or at least, came to terms with the idea) that after the November events the
empowerment of Moroccan nationalism was irreversible and that independence would
follow suit
The key concept being weighed by those two interpretations was not, strictly speaking,
the imminence of Morocco's independence though The hypothesis of granting
autonomy to Morocco took place within the context of a widespread crisis of colonial
legitimacy From the colonizer's traditional point of view, the decision whether or not to
abandon a colonial possession would be determined by the viability (or more precisely,
Review, for example, the interviews given by Franco to the national newspapers ABC, Arriba or Ya
throughout December 1955
151
Arriba, 16 December 1955
Ill
what the metropolis considered viable) of remaining in the colony. The bottom line in
this debate was thus the assessment Franco and Garcia Valino had made of the
momentum and ripeness of North Africa's decolonization process. In this respect,
Franco's declaration displayed a general disregard for the empowerment of anti-colonial
sentiments in Morocco. Moreover, in pure political terms the dictator's opinions
revealed a lack of acumen that seemed to willingly ignore not just Morocco's current
developments, but also those taking place in French North Africa.
When compared to Franco's, the High Commissioner's better disposition to approach
independence-oriented negotiations becomes problematic. It is worth stressing the fact
that both Franco's and Garcia Valino's colonial mindsets shared a common Africanista
denomination. From the perspective of both men's colonial identities, the optimization
of the regime's standing in Morocco was a central and appealing goal. Precisely, the
outlining of the Africanista colonial theory had first originated during the 1920s Rif
wars, in which both Franco and Garcia Valino participated. In order to establish in a
reliable manner if the Franco-Garcia Valino disagreement was caused by a fundamental
ideological question or simply by a matter of interpretation, the common formative
background of both men needs to be reassessed.
Morocco had represented to the regime's colonial ideology a genuine breeding ground;
all the elements constituting the foundational traits of the Africanista mindset had been
forged in the context of the 1920s Rif wars. During the conflict, both Franco and Garcia
Valino had swelled the ranks of the Ejercito de Africa and acquired their understanding
of African affairs. Though Franco's expertise received much international projection by
the regime's propaganda, the same traits could be attributed to the dictator's clique that
shared the same African experience. According to the regime's gospel Garcia Valino
112
knew Morocco "to the extreme of having shed it with his [own] blood."152 It was
precisely the personal circumstances in which both men became fervent Africanistas
where their subsequent colonial identities need to be circumscribed.
Above any other considerations, both men experienced Morocco first and foremost in
their capacity as soldiers. Certainly, the knowledge Franco acquired from his stay in
Morocco was always filtered through his vision as a member of the Spanish military;
his interaction with Africa, the African people and African customs was thus
internalized according to a strict martial psychology and a war-related understanding of
the Moroccan scenario. Suarez Fernandez has stressed that "Franco was, above all, a
military man"; as a matter of fact, the same could be said of most of his collaborators
and certainly, of Garcia Valino.
As with Franco, for the High Commissioner that
elemental conception of Morocco was also indissolubly associated to a military
perception of a war-torn colony that needed to be pacified.
The inherent military ethos in both men's understanding of colonial Morocco had
constituted an essential feature of Spanish Morocco's management. Since the
protectorate's foundation, the colonial rule had consisted of a series of military
operations rather than in a proper colonial administration. Therefore, even after the
colony's pacification in 1927, the preponderance of military elements over civilian ones
had remained quintessential to the Spanish colonizing project in Morocco.154 That
military rationale impregnating Spain's performance was naturally consolidated with
"En la guerra y en la paz, el General Garcia Valino ha prestado a Espana los mas altos servicios".
Informaciones, 17 December 1955.
Luis Suarez Fernandez Francisco Franco y su tiempo, Vol. 1 (Madrid: Fundacion Nacional Francisco
Franco, 1984) p. 13.
Josep Lluis Mateo Dieste La "hermandad" hispano-marroqui. Politico y religion ba'jo el protectorado
espahol en Marruecos (1912-1956) (Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2003) pp. 53-83.
113
the 1939 Francoist takeover. In point of fact, the inordinate military sway of the colonial
administration had been pointed out by the Sociedad de Estudios Hispano-Africanos in
June 1951. In a report sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this institution advocated
for a decentralization of the civil and military administrations and considered "a matter
of vital importance" the appointment of diplomatic (i.e. non-military) personnel to
occupy the colonial departments.155
The above-mentioned Africanista mindset matches well the stance adopted by Franco
apropos of the November events and particularly, his adamant position before the
possibility of a colonial loss. However, an analysis solely relying on foundational
ideological grounds does not explain why the High Commissioner, sharing an identical
colonial identity, held a differing view. In spite of this, there exist other factors likely to
have determined the High Commissioner's attitude that are not, strictly speaking,
subjected to formative Africanista background.
Indeed, while both men shared almost the same personal experience in Morocco during
the 1920s, their paths with regard to the colony had followed different directions
thereafter. Franco, but for a brief period as commander-in-chief of the Ejercito de Africa
in 1935 and an even briefer stay on the eve of the civil war, had no subsequent contact
with the colony. Garcia Valino, on his part, had held his post as High Commissioner of
Morocco for nearly a four year-period prior to November 1955. Those years implied not
merely a physical stay in the colony but also a first-hand experience of the evolution of
Spanish Morocco regarding a phenomenon - the consolidation of anti-colonial
sentiments and the Franco-Moroccan crisis - that would precisely define the December
This institution seems to have operated under exceptional lack of censorship in expressing its
concerns about the current developments in Spanish Morocco. Ybarra Enriquez Ibid., pp. 68-9.
114
events. Garcia Valino had remained in his post for a vital period (1951-1955) during
which decisive developments directly responsible for the November situation were
shaping up. As a result, the High Commissioner relied on an empirical experience that
equipped him better to face the realities of colonial Morocco by November 1955.
On the other hand, Franco's main reference to assess the November situation was his
military participation in the 1920s Rif wars. The dictator never experienced colonial
Morocco during peace and as such, his knowledge of African affairs was entirely
subjected to a military-driven criterion. More importantly, the dictator's Moroccan
antecedents were entirely alien to the very idea of colonial independence (at least, in the
way it was formulated in the 1950s) and specifically, to the anti-colonial character of
the Moroccan nationalist movement. Unlike Franco, Garcia Valino experienced
Morocco since 1951 essentially as a colonial administrator. While both men shared a
similar ideological indoctrination, in Garcia Valino's case such formative background
was complemented by a less dogmatic knowledge obtained from his protracted stay as
High Commissioner.
This hypothesis does not imply that the High Commissioner's experience annulled or
outran his Africanista colonial identity. His stance before the collapse of the colonial
establishment in November 1955 simply evinced a more matter-of-fact approach that
took into account considerations that Franco seemed to have overlooked or
underestimated. Actually, the thesis that Garcia Valino's administrative experience
constituted the key dissonant element to explain his deviation from the more doctrinal
Africanista mindset can also be used to explain the Franco-Garcia Valino divergence
regarding relations with the Residency.
115
Imbued by the Africanista identity, both Franco and Garcia Valino had cultivated
throughout years a resolute hatred for the French in Morocco. The High
Commissioner's Francophobia had been reflected by his lack of initiative in promoting
Franco-Spanish co-operation.1
During the peak of the Franco-Moroccan crisis in
October 1955, Garcia Valino had actually ordered the total closure of the FrancoSpanish colonial frontier in an attempt to avoid a possible contagion of the Spanish
zone.157 In spite of those precedents, one of the identifiable factors in Garcia Valino
dissension had been his willingness to resume Franco-Spanish colonial collaboration in
order to reach a joint solution to the colonial crisis To this end, the High Commissioner
summoned France's Resident Dubois for a formal meeting in Larache in January
1956.158
Unlike Garcia Valino, the dictator's French position had essentially consisted of
securing that Spain's rights and interests in the colony were not ignored by unilateral
decisions The overt anti-French tones in Franco's opinions throughout December 1955
demonstrate well that no collaboration with the Residency was desirable beyond the
inclusion of Spam in the Franco-Moroccan negotiations - a question that was already
contested by the French interpretation of Spain's colonial rights. The disagreement
about whether or not co-operating with the French before both nations' imminent
The High Commissioner had actually made preparations for an interview with Resident Jum in June
1951, shortly after his appointment However, the meeting was postponed without providing an
explanation and the French interpreted this as a token of the Spanish representative s disregard for the
French presence in Morocco Ybarra Enriquez Ibid, pp 69-70 Morales Lezcano also attributes to the
High Commissioner a strong phobia against the French presence in Morocco Morales Lezcano, Ibid, p
168
157
According to the High Commissioner, the total closure of the Spanish Moroccan frontier was
undertaken "in order to avoid the illegal crossing of [insurgency] troops" and to guarantee that "doubts
and misinformation [the French accusation of Spam s involvement] are dissipated " AMAE R 3827/4
[Clipping of the article "Fermeture totale de la frontiere hispano-marocaine" Le Meridional-La France,
17 October 1955]
158
Pueblo, 21 December 1955
116
colonial collapse was based on a matter of perspective resulting from each man's
colonial experience. Since the High Commissioner had shared with Franco similar and
resolute anti-French views in the past, his change of opinion could have only been
driven by the direct observation of the evolution of the colonial situation. If he
understood the futility of trying to dodge independence any longer, a rapprochement to
the French authorities was a rather logical step.
Having lost every advantage over France the regime's standing in Morocco was, after
the November events, utterly weak. Garcia Valino's disposition to resume co-operation
with the Residency could be interpreted as a late attempt to reverse his Francophobia
and to somehow set things straight with the French authorities. However, it is doubtful
that the High Commissioner's experience had made him reconsider his hatred for
France - not when it had precisely epitomized so blatantly his colonial management and
rhetoric during the dynastic crisis. More likely, his experience as High Commissioner
made him realize an elemental truth: the conservation of the regime's interests in
Morocco (safeguarding Spain's influence) could not be overshadowed by the means to
achieve it (the pursuit of an anti-French colonial policy). Again, nurturing French anticolonialism made sense in as much as it furthered the regime's colonial empowerment.
Once such an empowerment came to an end and both nations faced an identical
predicament (the end of the colonial rule), maintaining the anti-French rhetoric did not
contribute at all to further the regime's objectives. Given France's regained advantage,
an anti-French policy was counterproductive and could only further damage the
regime's colonial standing.
As a matter of fact, Garcia Valino's views displayed a resourcefulness toward the longterm survival of the regime's interests in Morocco that Franco seemed to lack. By re-
117
establishing colonial relations with the Residency, the High Commissioner was
appealing to the only possible bond Spain and France had left: their ultimate mutual
identity as colonizing nations. In doing so, the High Commissioner might have expected
to somehow mollify Spain's colonial image by association with France and its new proindependence policy and ultimately secure the ground for a suitable post-colonial
scenario. The plan essentially faltered by assuming that the French authorities would be
interesting in co-operating with Spain in anything else beyond combating anti-terrorism.
However, the views and foresight displayed by Garcia Valino must not be approached
following any other ideological referent than the Africanista one.
Taking Franco and the Francoist clique's ideological standing as the main point of
reference, Garcia Valino's December reaction was indeed irregular. Those differing
views however, were more the product of his practical expertise in Moroccan affairs
rather than a strict deviation from the common Africanista stream. As evinced by his
colonial management during the optimization process, the High Commissioner sought
the same objectives in Spanish Morocco as did Franco. The dictator had affirmed that
the difference between his stance and that of France apropos of Morocco's
independence was not about "the end, but [about] the means to achieve it."159 In this
respect, the same could be said when comparing Franco's and Garcia Valino's
approaches. Essentially, both men shared an identical colonial identity (outlined by a
common military psychology) and the same concerns in colonial Morocco but disagreed
about the specifics along which the crisis should be tackled.
By late 1955 Franco did not conceive a post-colonial scenario mainly because
independence (not even de jure independence) was an unacceptable idea. Once the
159
Arriba, 16 December 1955.
118
independence process took root in North Morocco in November, the Spanish authorities
- quite like the French - started to make preparations for the conservation of
metropolitan interests in a post-colonial order. It is in this context where the High
Commissioner's stances need to be encompassed, and more importantly, where the
Franco-Garcia Valino divergence gains full significance. The position adopted by
Franco was, in many respects, contradictory and dissociated from the colonial realities
of North Africa. Moreover, the dictator's December statements did not merely uncover
his hitherto political immobilism to the very idea of a withdrawal from Morocco; it
marked the beginning of a quasi-delusional approach that would characterize the
dictator's responses (and by extension, the regime's) until independence in May 1956.
C. Negotiating Independence. From Policies of Optimization to Policies of
Delusion (December 1955-April 1956)
The French maneuver, besides compromising every improvement made since 1946,
unfolded the Moroccan crisis right into the Spanish zone. Since mid November 1955,
the first manifestations of unrest had flowered among the radical political groups and
specially, among the Riffian factions.
By January 1956 popular agitation had
increased and radical insurgent groups had started to operate within Spanish
Morocco.1
[
Though in terms of sheer numbers the situation was far from matching
French Morocco's predicament, the Spanish zone was no longer shielded from the
nationalist onslaught.
Simultaneously, the more politically oriented nationalist elements within Spanish
Morocco were articulating a response to France's November statement. Mirroring the
160
Ybarra Enriquez, Ibid., pp. 241-3.
AMAE 4472/17 [Clipping from article "L'agitation nationaliste gagne le Maroc espagnol" Paris-Presse.
Rabat, 9 January 1955] 10 January 1955.
161
119
French zone's situation, Abd-el-Khaleq Torres' National Reform Party (the main
nationalist formation in North Morocco) was preparing by January 1956 its demands to
the Spanish authorities. Among them were the High Commissioner's recognition of
Spain's full accountability regarding the independence process and the delegation of
administrative responsibilities to a provisional government, including instructions about
its management. Besides, Torres advocated for full recognition of independence and
territorial unity under the Sultan's authority contingent on the achievement of "positive
results" in the Franco-Moroccan negotiations.162
The joint pressure of colonial instability, on the one hand, and an irreparable loss of
legitimacy, on the other, undermined the pillars that had sustained the regime's position
in Morocco. Paradoxically, several specifics of the Spanish-Moroccan crisis (December
1955-April 1956) had developed in such an adverse way due to the regime's actions.
This was especially manifest regarding Franco's colonial rhetoric. Certainly, the key
elements in the optimization's discourse - the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood, the
identification with the Sultan's cause and foremost, the anti-French traits - took a 180°
turn and lost their value as assets. It looked like everything that had represented an
advantage to further Franco's standing in Morocco became, after the Celle Saint-Cloud
Agreements, toxic to Spain's colonial survival.
In fact, France's November maneuver had acted as a catalyst for a series of
contradictions implicit in the regime's colonial policy. The negative potential in those
contradictions had been inhibited by the fruits of optimization, which in itself had rested
on the all-encompassing prerequisite that France did not alter its colonial policy in
Wolf, Ibid., p. 296.
120
Morocco. It was exactly under these conditions where the regime's position had been
optimized and where its reputation among the Moroccan people had reached its highest
success. Given the durability of the regime's optimization, the rhetoric and political
actions characterizing Spanish Morocco's management became increasingly normalized
as the main course of action followed by the Spanish authorities. The accelerated
reversal of those favorable conditions had certainly ended the regime's empowerment,
but did not affect the rationales that had motivated it. In point of fact, the factors that
had made possible the amelioration of the regime's Moroccan standing did not rely so
heavily on contextual circumstances as they did on the personal colonial ideology of
Franco himself.
From the beginnings of the regime's colonial empowerment, Franco had held extremely
firm convictions about the Moroccan situation and about the actions of France in its
protectorate. Since in many ways the Spanish colonial action had been an extrapolation
of those same beliefs, the management of the crisis since December 1955 would
develop along the very same pattern. In other words, Franco's immobilism vis-a-vis an
independence-oriented evolution in Morocco imprinted and monopolized the regime's
responses during the crisis. The dictator's fixed images of the colony interfered with the
Spanish authorities' assessment of Morocco's loyalty toward Spain and thwarted even
further what little maneuverability they had left. Franco's conceptions of colonialism
and the role of the protecting nation represents the only conceivable hypothesis to
explain the inconsistencies and contradictions displayed during the management of the
crisis.
121
It is important to stress that the regime's margin of action after November 1955 had
been
significantly
narrowed.
Indeed,
by
announcing
independence-oriented
negotiations, France set the rules of the game that would define the evolution of the
Moroccan scenario until independence. Those parameters were applicable to every
development taking place in colonial Morocco and as such, they also applied to Spain.
The French decision of willingly initiating the transition to a post-colonial scenario
imposed, by reason of the protectorate's juridical foundation and France's discretionary
prerogatives, a similar process in Spanish Morocco. As a result, the scope in which the
regime had exerted its political (and to a lesser extent, rhetorical) resources during
optimization was restricted to the pattern set by France, despite Franco's reservations.
The inability to determine Spanish Morocco's political direction - a ghost that had
endangered Spain's actions since 1912 — would accentuate even further the delusional
character of Franco's colonial rule.
Throughout the Spanish-Moroccan crisis, the regime's responses were slow, halfhearted and generally unable to counter the intensity and virulence of the colonial
collapse. The empowerment of Spanish Morocco's nationalist claims since December
1955 demanded a quick and resolute political action that, aware of the imminence of
independence, prepared the ground for a favorable post-colonial scenario. As
graphically pointed out by Deputy High Commissioner Jose Ma Bermejo shortly before
independence, in order to avoid the spread of anarchy "it would be convenient [...] to
carry out, before the transfer of powers, acts and gestures that gave the impression that
the situation was about to change or rather, that it was [already] changing (my
122
italics) "
However, the very conception of a post-colonial order in Spanish Morocco
had been discarded by Franco in his December statement The prevalence of this
adamant axiom - to oppose immediate dejure independence and concentrate efforts in
the survival of the colonial rule -was to dominate the reaction of the Spanish authorities
to absurd extremes
The regime s political maneuverability during the crisis was brought to a stalemate by
both internal and external factors On the one hand, because Franco did not pursue
granting independence to his protectorate, no clear political measure was undertaken
toward this end until after March 1956, on the other hand, with France (and the
Moroccan representatives) refusing to include Spain at the negotiating table, the regime
had to wait until France made its move and only afterwards (but also as a result of it),
initiate its own independence negotiations '
All things considered, on January 28*
1956 the High Commissioner presented to the Caliph a decree with which to appease
the protectorate's nationalists Essentially, the reform's basic contribution to internal
autonomy consisted on the formation of an "independent government" in which the
colony's main nationalist parties had political representation The measure's reach
reflected quite faithfully Franco's iron determination to postpone independence and to
offer, in lieu of it, a gradual transfer of autonomy As such, it was poorly received by
the nationalist elements In Spanish Morocco, the nationalist representatives (and
163
AMAE R 4293/5 [Report of the Deputy High Commissioner about the evolution of the colonial
situation following the arrival of the Sultan] Tetouan, 12 April 1956 According to the analysis offered in
his reports, J M a Bermejo displayed an objectivity and understanding of the Moroccan situation (and
the measures it required from the Spanish authorities) unseen in the Spanish colonial administration
164
The Sultan, hoping that the French-Moroccan negotiations would result in the restoration on
Morocco s territorial unity, denied the Spanish participation before acknowledging Franco s stance
against the concession of imminent independence The same opinion was shared by the nationalist
leaders of the French zone The French authorities, on their part, banned Spam from the negotiations
but promised to keep it informed of its development Ybarra Enriquez, Ibid, pp 250 3
123
among them, Torres) renounced their positions and flew to Tangiers,165 from the French
zone, the Istiqlal Party referred to the plan as "bringing to the Moroccan mind a longlasting ill-fated feeling of making things worse, hence affecting Morocco s
sovereignty" A concept of reform was considered out of place and altogether
dissociated from Morocco's true sentiments, since "independence was the [people s]
desire and goal (my italics) "
The unsuitabihty of the January Decree also represented one of the first solid pieces of
evidence of the delusional overtones in the management of the crisis The idea that a
measure of those characteristics would give the regime any satisfactory results was in
itself far-fetched, by the beginning of 1956 to offer anything less than independence (or
manifest independence-oriented initiatives) when France had already declared it an
achievable goal, was political nonsense The measure, even if designed to work as a
cushion that bought the regime some time, was devoid of any sense of political realism
This inconsistency had been commented on by the Deputy High Commissioner when he
reasoned that, since the decree lacked any mention to independence, "a program
consisting on mere partial and superficial reforms was extremely humble regarding the
demands of the Moroccan people "167 This remark suggested that the dissociation
between the regime s responses and Spanish Morocco's evolution was by 1956
acknowledged by members of the colonial administration Furthermore, considerations
of this kind (especially given their provenance) depicted a colonial management that
barely entailed a careful assessment of the situation in Morocco
165
Salas Larrazabal, Ibid , p 283
AMAE R 4293/5 Resumen Informativo (2a Quincena de enero) [Report of the Deputy High
Commissioner about the evolution of the colonial situation during January s second fortnight] Tetouan,
31 January 1956
166
124
If the regime's political action was manifestly driven by dogmatic considerations, the
same traits were expected to imbue the counter-rhetoric wielded during the height of
Moroccan anti-colonialism. The colonial discourse during the crisis did not introduce
any original elements but rather, encompassed and restated every concept displayed
during optimization. The lack of innovations that mirrored the changing circumstances
in Spanish Morocco was not fortuitous though. As before, the regime's colonial
discourse was the exclusive product of Franco's decision; the High Commissioner, as
well as any member of the colonial administration, simply facilitated that rhetoric to
reach the Moroccan subjects. That discursive continuity conveyed the dictator's
determination to negate Moroccan independence as a political reality. Perhaps even
more sharply than at any other point during optimization, Franco's rhetoric and Spain's
official one overlapped. As a result, the regime's colonial discourse during the
protectorate's last months under Spanish rule was characterized by a strong delusional
approach.
The all-encompassing narrative dominating the regime's colonial discourse from
November 1955 to April 1956 was the idea of a gradual transfer of autonomy to Spanish
Morocco. Politically speaking, the thought that a progressive transfer of colonial
responsibilities was feasible when independence-oriented negotiations were already in
motion in the French zone was certainly defective. However delusional this reasoning
might have been, it transmitted quite literally Franco's opinion.
The dissociation between the dictator's stances and the course of events in colonial
Morocco was implied by a private statement given on January 24* 1956. When asked to
provide an estimation on when the colony would be ready for independence, Franco
125
went as far as stating that "within twenty-five years the country [would] be ready, with
the personnel and means necessary to meet the requirements of an entirely autonomous
administration, and free from the interference of third nations "
The question of
whether or not the dictator truly believed his own prognosis was irrelevant By late
January, evidence (mainly, the French-Moroccan negotiations) supported beyond doubt
the idea of a post-colonial Morocco as a short-term political fact
To defend such
positions involved, purely and simply, a doctrine-ridden stance with little or no
connection with Morocco's recent developments
The rational basis sustaining the regime's independence by stages theory mostly relied
on two interconnected discourses already exploited during optimization the depiction
of immediate independence as contrary to Morocco's interests and the defense of
Spain's legitimate and inalienable nghts in the colony By cultivating the idea of
independence as a herculean undertaking that required a protracted interim process, the
regime portrayed the Franco-Moroccan negotiations as off-hand, poorly managed and
above any other considerations, harmful to Morocco's interests The regime's adamant
opposition to follow "sudden impulses" (1 e immediate independence) was presented as
echoing the opinion of "[Morocco's] more moderate and well-informed nationalist
elements " 170 When confronted with the decision of choosing between "the easy and
immediate, though catastrophic [France's independence plan] and the well-formulated
and bitter, though promising [Franco's independence by stages'] Spain doubtlessly chose
lbb
Salgado-Araujo, Ibid, p 158
Franco-Moroccan negotiations had developed rapidly since the November statement On February
11 th , Resident Dubois had co-signed with the Throne representatives a protocol by which administrative
powers were delegated on French officials in an "advisory" capacity C R Pennell Morocco Since 1830 A
History (New York New York University Press, 2000) pp 289-90
170
Ya, 4 December 1955
169
126
the latter"
In Franco's own words, a refusal to impose an "adulterated" solution to
Morocco fully reflected and typified "the end of an era in which Spain [had been]
consistent with its traditional respect to Morocco's international status "172
When analyzing the entire colonial situation, Franco's Francophobia seemed to surface
as a driving force fueling the regime's responses In point of fact, the dictator had
considered the Spanish and French approaches as ideologically contradictory while in
practice, they were virtually the same The exacerbated anti-French traits of the
regime's rhetoric prior to and during optimization had shaped Franco's understanding of
the Moroccan scenario to such an extent that they eventually ended up distorting it
entirely There is no doubt that the relationship between Spain and France in colonial
Morocco had been, to say the least, restless, there is evidence to suggest that the will to
undermine the other's colonial stability had also been part of France's agenda in the
months before independence 173 Notwithstanding those considerations, from a basic
perspective France and Spain shared a common goal to continue enjoying their colonial
privileges over Morocco The fact that the regime felt compelled to compete with
France indicates that Franco's reaction during the crisis relied on pre-conceived images
that were to a great measure dissociated from the current situation in Morocco
The thesis that proper independence demanded a protracted process was thoroughly
reiterated by the regime's rhetoric According to this gospel, in order to guarantee a
satisfactory outcome for Morocco "a stage of slow political and administrative
171
Arriba, 18 December 1955
"Palabras de Su Excelencia el Jefe de Estado" Arriba, 6 April 1956
According to a report issued by the Spanish consulate in Oujda (French Morocco), leaflets providing
guidelines to the French colonial administration to presumably encourage an anti Spanish attitude
among Moroccans had been distributed in late December 1955 AMAE R 3827/4 Campaha contra la
actitud espahola en el Protectorado Oujda, 21 december 1955
127
organization seemed convenient and even indispensable (my italics)".
In rationalizing
that delay, the High Commissioner added that Morocco currently lacked the
administrative capabilities and technical knowledge to rule itself. Before freedom was
obtained Spain had to consider "the need to prepare the people who aspire to that
freedom" in the first place. Hence "after carefully studying the cultural situation", the
High Commissioner concluded that independence had to start "with the basics" and
focus on educating the Moroccan subject.175 Defending the need for compulsory
education and administrative decentralization attempted to provide a more substantiated
justification for the slow pace of the regime's responses to the demands for
independence.
The idea of launching an ambitious educational and administrative program was
however debatable. On the one hand, if it was indeed economically viable, it could be
interpreted that the regime had the means but nonetheless had chosen not to do so. An
assumption of the kind essentially questioned the good faith of the regime and morally
disqualified the reputation gained during optimization. On the other hand and more
likely, the characteristic lack of resources assigned to Spanish Morocco's colonization
ruled out the implementation of any grand initiative as it had done in the past. By
putting forward the continuance of the protectorate's formula as guarantor of Morocco's
future, Franco was actually wielding a double-edge sword; as pointed out by an
"Marruecos en trance de decision". Ya, 4 December 1955.
AMAE R 3843/14 [Interview given by Garcia Valino to the Egyptian newspaper Al Gomhoria] (?)
January 1956.
128
international newspaper, if the colony's material development was an objective France,
upon much more substantiated economic grounds, could allege the same
76
One of the specific motifs receiving a great deal of attention from the Francoist
propaganda was the support given to the Sultan's cause during the dynastic crisis
During optimization Franco had taken the figure of Mohammed V as a symbol of the
Moroccan people and in turn, had used the monarch's deposition as an allegory of the
French disregard for Morocco When France announced the Sultan's restitution in
November 1955 Franco, aware that the moral advantage gained during the dynastic
crisis was about to recede, resorted once more to the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood
rhetoric
Apropos of the Spanish support dunng the Sultan's exile Garcia Valino had stated that
"Spain encouraged and helped [Morocco] to keep up a morale that, without its support,
would have collapsed" l
7
That support precisely typified the moral responsibility that
the protecting nations had originally acquired with Morocco Spain's liability, by virtue
of the unique traits of the Spanish-Moroccan friendship, had extended to include a
genuine sentiment of joy for the Sultan's return that Spaniards felt like their own
When the High Commissioner congratulated the Caliph (the Sultan's representative in
the Spanish zone) in November 1955 for the Sultan's return, he talked "on behalf of the
personnel and authorities of the [colonial] administration, all the elements of the
Moroccan Army [Ejercito de Africa], as well as the Spanish population [ ]"
176
To
AMAE R 4460/30 [Clipping from article "35 Grados Latitud Sur" Marcha Montevideo, 23 December
1955]
177
"Un regimen politico democratico es dificil de conseguir en Marruecos" ABC (Seville), 3 January
1955
178
"Gratitud de la zona espahola de Marruecos al Caudillo Franco" Arriba, 5 November 1955
129
restate the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood rhetoric in a pro-Sultan discourse held
several advantages First, it attempted to undermine the negative effect of France's
November maneuver, depicting Spain as the protecting nation that had honored its
colonial commitments from the beginning The fact that France had "flatly rectified"179
its colonial policy potentially reinforced the righteousness of the regime's actions and
overall, instilled an image of political consistency barely found during the crisis
management, second, an appeal to the emotional significance of the figure of the Sultan
was, given the circumstances, essentially an appeal to the Moroccan people as a whole
Albeit representing a great source for colonial legitimacy prior to November 1955, the
pro-legitimacy rationale contained a fundamental flaw it overlooked the political role
of the Sultan as catalyst of Morocco's anti-colonial identity Since the 1940s, the Sultan
had been gaining political significance as symbol and referent for a post-colonial
national identity to Morocco
His removal and subsequent restitution came to
reaffirm his undisputed centrality in an independent Morocco While the regime did
realize and exploit the idea of the monarch as symbol of Morocco's national unity, it did
not appreciate his increasing role as bastion against European colonialism The Sultan's
symbolism regarding Morocco's reunification and his increasing political role were
closely intenelated developments that could not be dissociated from each other The
dictator s military-centered colonial ideology and its doctrinal aversion for the realm of
Editorial "Espana con Marruecos" Arriba, 17 December 1955
Mohammed V had been attracted to the nationalist movement at least since the mid 1930s, but
chose to keep a low profile in order to avoid compromising his position with the French The monarch s
open approval to the nationalist cause was marked by the 1947 Tangier speech, when he mirrored
Morocco s popular unrest regarding the increasingly repressive management of Resident Juin By siding
with the nationalist, the Sultan was also bestowing on the anti-colonial discourse "the whole weight of
the Moroccan tradition " E G H Jofee "The Moroccan Nationalist Movement Istiqlal, the Sultan and the
Country" in Journal of African History 26/4, World War Two and Africa (1985) pp 289 307
130
politics constitute the only agency with both the motivation and the means to produce
such an oblivious assessment
According to the regime's logic, the support given to the Sultan had to pay dividends to
Spain's image among Moroccans - more so when considering that, by rectifying its
position, France was legitimizing the regime's pro-Sultan's policy The Spanish
national press amply publicized the tokens of gratitude expressed by Moroccan
representatives to Franco and Garcia Valino, who in the Caliph's own words "had
forced [themselves] to share our joys and sorrows and that had supported us when the
event [the Sultan's removal] took place" and whose policy was "honest and
praiseworthy" 181 Mohammed V himself had stated shortly after his restitution that
"Spain [had] been the only country in the world that in these probatory years defended
the cause of the Moroccan people and its legitimate Sultan"
In spite of these
manifestations, the praise to the regime's policy was ephemeral at best and did not
change the fact that after November 1955 Spain had lost the initiative in Morocco 183
The interpretations of Moroccan gratitude actually entailed a wider and more vital
subject in the regime's colonial scheme the true character of the loyalty professed by
the Moroccan subject The idea that the people of Morocco appreciated the Spanish
colonist had constituted a chief pillar of Africanismo via the cultural and historical
relationship between both nations In Franco's colonial ideology, Morocco's loyalty to
the regime was a natural gesture reciprocating the colonizer's sacrifices and dedication
This had represented a virtual component of the regime's paternalist conception of the
181
AMAE R 3843/14 Nota de la Alta Comisana [Statement from His Imperial Excellency Caliph Muley
Hassan Ben el Mehdi] 11 January 1956
182
"Magnifica Jornada hispanomarroqui en Saint Germain-en-Laye" Arriba, 12 November 1955
183
Salas Larrazabal, Ibid , p 283
131
colonizer-colonized relationship, hence, Franco and the Africanista clique always held
the firm conviction that Morocco's loyalties to its protecting nation were truthful and
immanent This assumption proved to be the basis for much of the delusion and
contradiction displayed by the regime during the cnsis
After France s November announcement, the regime had expected that its pro-Sultan
policy would keep popular support in Morocco In fact, the event polarized the
dissociation between the regime s convictions and the alienation of Morocco's
population and wholly exposed its delusional premise When in late December 1955 the
High Commissioner was asked about the foreseeable consequences the colony might
experience as a result of the November events, he replied that "the sentiments of the
Moroccan people from our zone ( ) have not been in any degree modified Nor may
have changed the trust deposited in the protecting nation and its methods ( ) I hope
that the gratitude of the Moroccan people from both zones will not be limited to words
issued during the difficult days [the dynastic crisis] "184 Actually, both the Sultan and
the nationalists, albeit having previously praised Spain's policies, had adopted in their
dealings with the regime a much more outspoken anti-colonial attitude following the
November events, something Garcia Valino knew well 185 Arguably, the High
Commissioner's omission might have been motivated by the will to avoid the colonial
rule's decline from reaching the national milieu However, since the crisis management
was characterized by a considerable deal of contradiction and vagueness, the regime's
overestimations cannot be attnbuted to censorship alone
"La independence de Marruecos debe ser Nevada por los gobiernos mteresados con cautela y
sabiduna" Pueblo, (?) December 1955
As described in Wolf s study of Abd-el-Khaleq Torres, the High Commissioner had flown into a rage
when the Moroccan representative expressed his support to the French initiative of starting
independence negotiations Wolf, Ibid, pp 294 305
132
One of the reasons had been the incoherent and often contradictory character of the
regime's official interpretations of Morocco's true loyalties. Already in late January,
Franco himself had expressed reservations when he affirmed that "the affection the
Moroccan representatives claim to have for Spain should not be trusted, for in the end
they [would] do as it is suitable to them. (...) What we need is a reliable intelligence
service that provides substantiated evidence of those who betray us (my italics)."186
According to this statement, Franco seemed to understand that Spain's popularity was
irremissibly declining as the crisis worsened and the Franco-Moroccan negotiations
advanced. In spite of this, it premised from the seeming contradictory assumption that
the regime's support was still quite wide - in other words that the loyalty professed to
Spain was the rule, rather than the exception.
According to historian Suarez Fernandez, a similar concern had been expressed by
Garcia Valino when he wrote Franco on January 2nd that "now they all [the nationalist
movements] go against France, but they will eventually turn against us [the Spanish
authorities] because they claim that they do not receive enough support from Spain."1
Like Franco, the High Commissioner's awareness about the rise of anti-Spanish
sentiments in the protectorate was extremely ambiguous; it entailed an essential
misperception that the nationalists' general regard for Spain had not been modified by
the November events and particularly, by the regime's responses to them.
Likewise, the accounts of the existence of anti-Spanish sentiments oscillated between
unconditional support and zealous manifestations of hostility. According to one report,
on November 14* 1955 the celebrations for the Sultan's return in Tetouan witnessed the
Salgado-Araujo, Ibid., pp. 158-9.
Suarez Fernandez, Ibid., Vol.5 p. 193.
133
gathering of thousand of Moroccans "in apple-pie order" including "cheers to Spain,
Franco and Garcia Valino" that interrupted the Caliph's speech
However, when later
Allal el-Fassi (leader of the Istiqlal Party) visited the same city, great social unrest was
reported, including exaltations to violence and cries of "death to the traitors and to the
protectors (my italics) "189 In late December though, the general sentiment of the
population of Oujda (French Morocco) regarding Spain was branded as "rather
favorable", stating that "the majority of Moroccans still [believed] in Spain" and that
many of the Union leaders there were "true friends of Spain" and had displayed "sincere
adherence to our country "' 90
Among those accounts, Deputy High Commissioner Jose Ma Bermejo seems to have
offered both the most accurate testimony about the state of anti-Spanish sentiments in
the protectorate and also the most recommendable course of action After Franco's
media statement - which, considering the circumstances, Bermejo deemed was not
issued in "the most suitable of times" - the unease had persisted Moreover, Bermejo
considered the colonial situation in mid December already "dangerous, uncertain, and to
a certain degree incongruous" for Morocco's population was "very primitive and there
are passions and forces unleashed " In addition, he warned that the Spanish authonties'
mam priority at that point was to avoid by all means an escalation of anti-colonial
violence and thus prevent "the sound of a single shot " l91 The bias in assessing the
colony's loyalties was summarized in a report about the Tetouan independence
celebrations on April 12th 1956 Bermejo reported that despite the media's mention of
188
"La capital del Protectorado espahol de Marruecos celebro el retorno de Ben Yusef" Arriba, 14
November 1955
189
AMAE R 4293/5 Nacionalismo La llegada de Allal el-Fassi a Tetuan Tetouan, 28 November 1955
190
AMAE R 3827/4, Ibid
191
AMAE R 4293/5 [Report from Deputy High Commissioner J M a Bermejo about the colonial situation
following Franco s December declarations] Tetouan, 14 December 1955
134
cheers for Spain, Franco and Garcia Valino "the only ones cheered were the Sultan and
the independence. They [the crowds] did not remember Spain but to insult and ridicule
it."192
The wide range of interpretation about the protectorate's loyalties well reflected the
ambiguous and eventually incongruous approach of the regime's colonial apparatus.
Censorship, though a powerful leitmotif, does not explain in itself the fluctuating nature
of the regime's disparate assessments. However, when contrasting the Spanish
performance during the crisis with that undertaken during the optimization process,
several aspects seem to coincide. Certainly, the tone set during optimization had relied
to a great measure on the steady exploitation of certain discourses (mainly synthesized
by the Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood formula) already sketched by the Africanista
rhetoric. Given the impromptu character of the collapse of Spain's colonial
empowerment after November 1955, it is possible that the colonial administration's
responses during the crisis were still determined by the same rationales exerted during
optimization.
Franco's conception of colonial politics ingrained the regime's crisis management and
imprinted it with a strong delusional, and eventually contradictory, orientation. This,
along with the aggravation that Spain remained, against Franco's will, a passive agent
during the Franco-Moroccan negotiations, marked the last months of Spanish colonial
occupation. The French authorities brought the negotiating process with the Moroccan
representatives to a close and on March 2n 1956 the Sultan ratified the formal
independence of the French protectorate in Morocco as defined by the formula
Ibid., [Report about the reception given to the Sultan in Tetouan apropos of Morocco's
independence]. Tetouan, 12 April 1956.
135
independence within the interdependence
The consequences of France's unilateral
decision were absolute and could not be in any degree assuaged By granting
independence France had also abolished the 1912 Treaty of Fez that established
Morocco as a European protectorate
194
Spam, which had not signed any direct
agreement with Morocco, lost any juridical authority to legitimize its occupation of
Northern Morocco The principle of temtorial indivisibility under the Sultan's authority
signed by both European nations in 1912 guaranteed that the very moment Morocco
ceased to be French (or rather, a European protectorate) the Spanish colonial position
would become null The French protectorate's independence stressed a reality - the loss
of Spanish Morocco - that had been anathema to the regime and nonetheless inevitable
at least since November 1955
However unavoidable the loss of Spanish Morocco, the regime acted slowly, thus
prolonging the colonial agony for more than a month The first reactions were promptly
set in motion the High Commissioner, on a public statement given on March 71 ,
declared that "if Spain expresses reservations ( ) it is not about the Moroccan people's
advances toward independence, but about the interdependence that determine those
advances (my italics) "195 Garcia Valino's remark was shortly after materialized by the
submission to Paris of a formal complaint, arguing that Spanish approval had been
ignored by France in the final document Indeed, even when Morocco's decolonization
193
As stated by the official declaration "the Government of the French Republic solemnly confirms the
recognition of Morocco s independence, which particularly implies diplomacy and a [national] Army
( )" The interdependence formula was specified by an additional protocol which included clauses like
the powers of France s representative (Resident General), France s assistance during the formation of
the Army and the Moroccan government s participation in the Franc Zone Committee (with voice vote
but no vote) during the "interim period" Document reproduced in "Pmeau y Si Bekkai han firmado, en
nombre de sus paises, la declaracion de independence del imperio jenfiano" ABC (Seville), 3 March
1956
194
Morales Lezcano, Ibid, pp 187 8
195
"La Alta Comisana reafirma la postura de Espana de ayudar al pueblo marroqui" ABC (Seville), 7
March 1956
136
had been already sanctioned by France, Franco s retentiomst stances seemed to prevail
and monopolize the regime's performance The defense of such a monolithic position
was noted by the Deputy High Commissioner, who recommended the abandonment of
that "negative immobilist stances" and the adoption of a "constructive course of action
not based on France's mistakes "196
The lack of assertiveness in kick-starting Spanish-Moroccan negotiations obviously did
not ease the deterioration of Spanish colonial rule Following the French protectorate's
independence, the Spanish zone kept experiencing manifestations of popular anticolomal sentiments and the occasional blow of insurgent activities Shortly after the
independence declaration, the celebrations in Tetouan witnessed disturbances by
elements allegedly "with no representation whatsoever in the Moroccan society "197
According to the regime's gospel, those individuals responsible represented "Spain's
enemies" and sought "to delete the [metropolis'] recent tokens of comprehension, help
and fondness", the incident was later identified as "instigated by the National Reform
Party "
In spite of this interpretation, the desertion of Moroccans from the Ejercito de
Africa (including weaponry theft), strikes and mounting unrest since December 1955
reflected a rather different reality the Moroccan subjects, aware that the Sultan's
authority and the country's self-determination had been restored, would not tolerate the
Spanish tutelage any longer 199
Already on April 2" Franco had finally stated to the international press that "a pacific
agreement in North Africa [would] take place, putting an end to the administrative zone
Ybarra Enriquez, Ibid , p 256
"Grupos de manifestantes provocan disturbios en Tetuan" ABC (Seville), 7 March 1956
Ibid , "Espaha defendera la independence de Marruecos dentro de la paz y del orden" Ya, 7 March
1956
Consult the colonial authorities reports included in AMAE R 4293/5
137
of Spanish Morocco and the formation of a united and independent Morocco under the
Sultan Mohammed v." 200 Reluctantly and after some preliminary contacts, the regime
finally initiated negotiations with the Moroccan representatives. The negotiating process
was officially inaugurated on April 4th. In many ways, the obstacles now faced by Spain
seemed to synthesize the contradictions and misconceptions that had conspicuously
riddled the regime's colonial responses since November 1955. Most of those hindrances
were in fact contingent on the continuation of the regime's uncompromising position,
which for the most part was maintained after French Morocco's independence. This
ideological bucklering (i.e. the exacerbation of an immobilist stance regarding
independence) contributed even further to the perception, both in Morocco and
internationally, that Franco was against the reunification of both colonies under a free
Morocco.
Another trait in the Francoist counter-rhetoric that had been constantly present in past
colonial stages was the dependence on France's colonial project. Before Franco, Spain
had taken the French model as the main theoretical and administrative reference to rule
Spanish Morocco; during optimization, Franco had often referred to France and
articulated his colonial policy in response to events originating in the French zone - all
this in combination with a strong anti-French rhetoric. By 1956 the French actions set a
fixed roadmap for the regime's diplomacy, imposing a particular course of action and
somehow manufacturing the negotiating model that Spain, as a lesser protecting nation,
would have to stick to. As a result, the April 7th Spanish-Moroccan Joint Declaration by
which Franco relinquished Spain's rights as a protecting nation in Morocco included an
"Declaraciones de Franco al "Herald Tribune". Marruecos sera independiente". Informaciones, 2 April
1956.
138
Additional Protocol that, just like the French one, would regulate post-colonial relations
with Morocco.201
The anti-French orientation had in fact gained new impetus with the French zone's
independence. One of the most evident contradictions in Franco's colonial ideology lay
precisely in its critique of France's policy. While the regime was adamant in opposing
immediate independence, the determination not to be replaced in a post-colonial
scenario was actually fuelled by Franco's hostility to France. This last consideration
would be materialized in the signing of an Additional Protocol along the same lines that
the French one.
When negotiations were finally started, the regime's main concern was that "the
[independence] Declaration was somewhat inferior to that of Paris (my italics)."202 The
perception of colonial Morocco as a scene of struggle to secure Spain's interests against
France was not new; however, the viability of Morocco's independence embodied in
France's March Declaration did exacerbate Franco's Francophobia to the point of nearly
overshadowing other considerations. The liquidation of the protectorate's framework
implicit in French Morocco's independence provided the most tangible evidence that
the Spanish zone would follow exactly the same path. If Franco feared being supplanted
by France in a post-colonial order he was somehow aware of Morocco's colonial
realities - i.e. independence. The focalization of Franco's French-phobia, despise its
contradictions, negated once more the impact of the decolonization process in Morocco
even during the negotiations with the Moroccan representatives.
Ybarra Enriquez, Ibid., pp. 263-4.
AMAE R 4293/5 [Report about the interview between the Deputy High Commissioner Bermejo and
the U.S. Ambassador in France, C. Dillon] Tetouan, 24 March 1956.
139
From an ideological point of view, the anti-French drive had enjoyed a great deal of
continuity and coherence in the Francoist colonial rhetoric. Among the other main
pillars in the regime's colonial policy, the anti-French motif (the determination not to be
supplanted by France) at this very point paradoxically implied an assessment of the
colonial circumstances arguably not displayed before. During the negotiating process,
the principle of "maintaining the Spanish presence, whichever its nature, while there
was French presence in Morocco" was reinvigorated as one of the regime's core
demands.203
Although the regime ended up yielding and granting independence on April 7th, it is
doubtful that the decision entailed an utter acceptance of the inexorability of a colonial
withdrawal. Salgado Araujo, the dictator's military secretary, resigned himself on April
4th that "whether or not we like it, Morocco [would] be independent."204 However,
according to the post-independence rhetoric, such discernment was far from being
considered a fait accompli by Franco and the Africanista clique. Especially when
considering the interdependence regime that followed independence, it is possible to
state that the regime never came to terms with the colonial loss in Morocco.
D. A Post-colonial Rhetoric for an Independent Morocco
As might have been expected, the granting of formal independence to Spanish Morocco
did not weaken the pivotal role that the colony represented to Franco and the regime. In
turn, the colony's indisputable position as the dictatorship's ideological cradle was to
survive the post-colonial order. According to the Francoist zeal to produce and
monopolize the public images of its own performance, the regime was compelled to
203
AMAE R 4293/5. Tetouan, 24 March 1956.
Salgado Araujo, Ibid., p. 170.
140
articulate a counter-rhetoric for the post-colonial era. The bitter aftertaste left by Spain's
abrupt (and poorly-managed) colonial withdrawal necessitated a new reinvention of the
official Africanista mythos that set the pattern by which the December 1955-April 1956
events would be explained. The interdependence regime actually guaranteed that such
post-colonial discourse would operate along the actual pursuing of the regime's interests
in Morocco - which in the years following 1956 was taken by the determination not to
hold "a position inferior to any other nation (namely, France)."205
The steady reformulation of a colonial rhetoric that incorporated and maximized
changes in the colonial scenario had been constant since the late 1940s. Comparatively
speaking, the nature of the post-independence circumstances introduced a qualitative
leap that demanded a proportionally updated response. In spite of this, Franco's postcolonial discourse did not exhibit any substantial break with the core tone and substance
employed in the past. By and large, this implied the continuous exploitation of the
Spanish-Moroccan friendship rhetoric. As Franco's all-encompassing logic, it was
thoroughly applied to counterbalance several potential hindrances faced by the regime
in (or about) Morocco.
Arguably, the most pressing obstacle following independence was the need to "save
face" regarding allegations that the regime, after France's independence declaration, had
opposed the unification and independence of Morocco. This concern had been
especially acute to the Moroccan subjects, since it cast doubt upon every assertion about
the privileged relation between both nations. The pretext put forth in this respect was
not new: Franco had opposed immediate independence always driven by a "sole
205
AMAE R 14921/6 [Personal letter from Francisco Franco to Mohammed V covering several issues
regarding Spanish Morocco's decolonization]. Madrid, 14 January 1961.
141
purpose" (a free, sovereign and united Morocco) about which Spain "always showed an
immutable will to fulfill "206 The fact that such objective had been theoretically
achieved in 1956 provided the regime's revisionism with a certain sense of historical
closure Morocco's independence thus fulfilled "the responsibility of restoring the
Sultan's authority and along with it, Northern Morocco's peace, order and progress
undertaken forty four year ago "207 The significance of the 1956 Joint Declaration was
thereafter reoriented to legitimize the regime's colonial action and particularly, its late
miscarriages
An identical discourse was subsequently put forward in the post-independence dealings
with the Moroccan government When the Sultan complained in 1961 about the slow
pace of the Ejercito de Africa's evacuation from Northern Morocco, Franco defended
the thesis that the military occupation answered a "common interest" by virtue of the
unique cultural symbiosis between both nations
As previously suggested, the
Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood rhetoric was maintained as main theoretical referent to
define relations with the former colony Interestingly enough, Francoist rhetoric seemed
to resemble the varied relations of dependence that the former colony still had with
Spain under the interdependence regime
The post-independence remterpretation of the colonial past attempted to produce a
retroactive image of the regime's management according to the very same monolithic
206
"Conducta inalterable de Espaha en Marruecos" ABC, 22 April 1956
"Marruecos, independiente" Arriba, 7 April 1956
208
Franco replied that he understood "that given the protectorate s protracted period, you
[Mohammed V] gave the total military evacuation a significance that did not correspond to the current
realities of [our] relation, which in neighboring nations has to be the maintenance of permanent
association ties" and that therefore "the eventual and consented stay of alien forces does not constitute
a motive of offense or disgrace when it is so demanded by the common interests (my italics) " AMAE R
14921/6 Madrid, 14 January 1961
207
142
rationales set during optimization. This was logical since Morocco, despite
independence, still represented a key component of Franco's political ideology that
transcended the realm of colonial affairs. In its post-colonial incarnation, the regime's
historical revisionism often presented the 1956 events as the perfect closure to an
impeccable colonial action which moral virtue was crowned by the support given to the
Sultan's cause during the dynastic crisis. To that end, the reinterpretation of Spain's
colonial past actually came back to 1912, when the protecting nation's responsibilities
had been first established. In what arguably was the only noticeable modification of the
Africanista rhetoric, the regime claimed now that Spain had been originally forced by
France (and the circumstances) to take over Spanish Morocco.
According to the Africanista rhetoric, Spain had accepted North Morocco in order to
prevent it from falling into France's hands. Facing a moral dilemma, the Spanish
authorities had realized that "there was no other policy left than that of the lesser evil"
and thus implying that the nature of Spain's interests in Morocco differed radically from
France's ambitions.209 That lesser evil theory was expanded to accommodate the idea
that, "as History could testify", the protectorate had been ascribed (by France), rather
than brought on by Spain's own actions.210 Franco himself had pointed out the
parallelism between the situations in 1912 and 1956 when stating that "the same
behavior beyond our control [France's ambitions in North Africa] had forced us to
participate in the protectorate's establishment, when Spain had traditionally defended
Morocco's independence and the Sultan's sovereignty".211
"Nuestra accion marroqui". Informaciones, 21 April 1956.
ABC, 22 April 1956
211
Francisco Franco Discurso pronunaado por S.E. el Jefe del Estado ante las Cortes Espaholas al
maugurar la VI Legislatura y Promulgaaon de los Prmapios del Movimiento Naaonal (Madrid
Publicaciones Espaholas, 1958) pp. 17-8.
210
143
The dictator's revisionism was threading a nanative of historical continuity where
Spain's juridical handicap to grant independence in 1956 was reformulated to fulfill
(and contain) a twofold objective. On the one hand, it was presented as a conscious
determination not to mimic (or being drawn into) France's colonial policies which, just
like in 1912, had been driven by selfish interests and a total disregard for the colonial
subjects. In doing so, the moral contrast between the French and the Spanish actions
was newly stressed according to an inverse mirror logic where the anti-French traits
were still predominant; on the other hand, by establishing an analogy between the 1912
and 1956 experiences, the 1956 inaction was presented as resembling the 1912's alleged
reluctance to take control of Northern Morocco. Ultimately, both experiences displayed
the same immutable will to honor Morocco's rights that Spain, precisely due to its
unique relation with the Moroccan people, was always bound to fulfill.
As evinced by the reformulation of the regime's colonial rhetoric, the Independence
Declaration on April 7th 1956 did not entail an acknowledgement by Franco's ideology.
As a matter of fact, the adamant maintenance of the entirety of the elements comprising
the dictator's colonial theory (especially, the relation between colonist and colonized)
indicates otherwise. Franco's inability to conceive Morocco beyond independence
constituted a severe case of delusion. However, the series of conceptions that led to such
delusional stances were directly drawn from his colonial ideology - a colonial ideology
that had originated and developed during Franco's personal Moroccan experience
during the 1920s. It is in the context of colonial Morocco where his Africanista identity,
his political ideology, and ultimately his actions gather full significance.
144
Conclusions
T
he determination to retain Spanish Morocco despite the consolidation of
anti-colonial stances represented the most distinctive characteristic of
Spain's colonial management. Traditionally, the unwillingness to relinquish Spain's
colonial rights has been attributed to the emotional value that the colony held to Franco
and his regime.212 The validity of such a hypothesis notwithstanding, ascribing the
entire range of responses for the period 1946-1956 to such an oversimplified rationale
does not necessarily draw a direct connection between those responses and Franco's
colonial ideology. Indeed, although the relation between Franco and the colony
remained central, it was its projection into the decolonization context that elucidates the
true character of the regime's political and rhetorical dynamics in late colonial
Morocco.
During the optimization process, the crisis and even after independence the Spanish
performance in Morocco embodied the core values of Franco's Africanista identity. The
regime's Africanismo had constituted a late incarnation of the Spanish equivalent to
Europe's pro-colonial currents of thought proliferating since the second half of the 19th
century. Its exact nature differed from most European cases though. First, in both
United Kingdom and France (the examples par excellence) the colonist mindset had
been more clearly split between the civilian and the military branches. Besides, the
latter's influence had been limited to the military stages and had rarely managed to
reach administrative positions after the colonial pacification. Second, the impetus of the
pro-colonial mindset had experienced a drastic recession in the aftermath of World War
212
C. R. Pennell Morocco Since 1830. A History (New York: New York University Press, 2000) p. 292.
145
Two and more importantly, vis-d-vis the gradual empowerment of anti-colonial stances.
The fact that anti-colonial discourses were also succeeding at the metropolitan level
indicates that by the late 1940s pro-colonial ideologies were manifestly receding.
Spanish Africanismo had displayed a series of characteristics that made it quite
distinctive by European standards. First of all, it had revolved almost exclusively
around a single colonial scenario (Morocco) and the social and political responses it
generated in Madrid were for the most part hostile. While it was cultivated by both
civilian and military elements, it was the latter that came to better portray the
Africanista ideology and the core of its message. As a matter of fact, those like Franco
fighting in the 1920s African wars in Morocco developed a mythos in which orthodox
conceptions of the colonial undertaking fused with more metropolitan-oriented political
rationales. The result was a strongly-charged doctrinal understanding of the colonial and
national scopes as a single political crusade in which the Army was to play a crucial
role.
The Africanista military branch became the hardcore stakeholder of Spain's colonial
aspirations. Furthermore, as a result of Franco's takeover of Spain in 1939, that colonial
mindset would enjoy a preeminent position as part of the regime's official ideology.
Given the regime's dictatorial nature, Franco's colonial theory was embedded in the
country's rhetorical apparatus and institutionalized to limits not experienced by any
other European power in Africa.
Those developments would also imprint a strong military logic to the Spanish policy;
the regime's understanding of colonial affairs thereafter tended to rely on martial
rationales rather than on Morocco's realities throughout the late 1940s and 1950s. Those
146
military traits often led to the identification of the protectorate's administrative
management and its military rule as virtually the same undertaking.
Regardless the anti-colonial character of Morocco's developments throughout the
period 1946-1956, the regime maintained the same core principle of rejecting
independence. Franco's immobilism vis-d-vis Moroccan independence had been
determined by a colonial theory that was directly fed from his Africanista identity. The
regime's performance in Morocco resulted from the superimposition of those colonial
images that had forged the Africanista ideology over the protectorate's present
circumstances.
Although that superimposition was present throughout the entirety of Franco's tenure in
Morocco, its potentially negative effects had been in practice blocked by the centrality
of the French-Moroccan crisis. In fact, the regime's instrumentalization of the crisis in
French Morocco made possible an empowerment of the Spanish colonial standing;
however, its sustainability was always contingent on the continuation - or like the
dynastic crisis proved in late 1953, the worsening - of the French impasse in its
protectorate. Once the conditions in French Morocco were modified in November 1955,
the premise that had sustained Spain's advantage came to an end. In turn, the
Africanista colonial ideology that had driven the regime's Moroccan policy unleashed
their adverse effects to the fullest extent.
The entire range of motives displayed by the regime during the Spanish-Moroccan crisis
(and afterwards) had a common denomination: they were all core traits of Franco's
Africanista identity: Spain's Francophobia but also its dependence on France's colonial
project and its reactive attitude to French Morocco's political; the Spanish-Moroccan
147
friendship rhetoric and the conviction that the Moroccan people loved and appreciated
the Spanish colonist and his doings; those elements had originated in Franco's
Africanista background rather than in colonial Morocco's 1950s circumstances.
At bottom, Franco had displayed in Spanish Morocco the same conceptions about
politics that were systematically applied in Spain since the dictatorship took over.
Franco himself had stated, apropos of his opposition to introduce European-style
politics in Morocco in 1955 that "nobody may wonder why we do not want for them
[the Moroccan people] what we despise for ourselves [Spain's]."2'3 The dictator's
unyielding stance against Moroccan independence was a simple extrapolation of his
more general political corollary regarding the very role (and necessity) of politics.
In Spain, Franco always conceived contemporary politics and the whole political game
as a plague that distorted the natural interactions between a government and its subjects.
The imposition of a regime that monitored those interactions and looked after the
degeneration of values brought by unchecked social involvement in politics had been
Franco's key argument to legitimize the dictatorship. The regime's mindset regarding
colonial management contained the same axiom of a strong governmental agency as
safeguard against the society's political alienation.
According to the Francoist gospel, in colonial Morocco as much as in Spain the
maintenance of the greater good demanded a resolute ruling authority; whether it was
independence (Morocco) or freedom (Spain), the society's aspirations could not be
granted gratuitously since they easily outstripped the people's capabilities to enjoy
them. The delusion and contradiction exhibited throughout the Spanish-Moroccan crisis
"Nuestra ejecutoria ante el pueblo de Marruecos es bien distinta de la francesa". Arriba, 16
December 1955.
148
ultimately reflected the incompatibility between Morocco's political awakening and
Franco's political theory. The regime's immobilism against Morocco's independence
was in fact reinforced by the colony's role as ideological cradle in Franco's political
universe. Spanish Morocco was simply too meaningful to the regime's mythos to lose
without a fight.
The entire range of policies implemented in the colony had sought the preservation of
the colonial rule as conceived by Franco's Africanista mindset. The heavy rhetorical
character imprinted on the regime's colonial action reflected Morocco's ideological
centrality and verified the symbiotic relation between the colonial and metropolitan
scopes that had defined Franco's political thought.
149
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Appendix (1): Cronology
1904
3 October
1912
30 March
27 November
1946
13 December
1950
4 November
1951
31 May
9 April
1952
7 March
1953
20 August
1954
25 January
1955
1 November
22 August
6 November
16 November
14 December
15 December
1956
28 January
15 February
2 March
4-5 March
4 April
7 April
Secret Franco-Spanish Treaty (preliminary
distribution of Morocco)
Franco-Moroccan Treaty of Fez. France establishes
its protectorate in Morocco
Franco-Moroccan Treaty. Spain establishes a
protectorate in Northern Morocco
U.N. General Assembly's Resolution 39/1
recommends Spain's diplomatic isolation
Derogation of U.N. General Assembly's Resolution
39/1
General Garcia Valino appointed Spanish
Morocco's High Commissioner
Signing of a Pact of Unity between colonial
Morocco's main nationalist parties
Decree legalizing political activities in Spanish
Morocco
French Morocco's coup de d'etat. Deposition of
Mohammed V
Tetouan Horse Racing meeting. High Commissioner
Garcia Valino supports the Sultan's cause
Beginning of the Algerian war of Independence
Beginning of Franco-Moroccan rapprochement in
Aix-Les-Bains
Announcement of Celle Saint-Cloud Agreements:
restitution of Mohammed V and Morocco's
independence
Mohammed V returns to Rabat
Spain joins U. N.
Franco's statement against the French formula
independence within interdependence
High Commissioner Garcia Valino presents Reform
Plan for Spanish Morocco.
Beginning of Franco-Moroccan negotiations
France grants independence to French Morocco
Riots in Tetouan
Beginning of Spanish-Moroccan negotiations in
Madrid
Spanish-Moroccan Joint Declaration of
Independence
158
Appendix (2): Dramatis Personae
Franco's Spain
Francisco Franco Bahamonde
Dictator, Head of State
Rafael Garcia-Valino
Spanish Morocco's High Commissioner (1951-1956)
Luis Canero Blanco
Under-Secretary of the Prime Minister's office
Alberto Martin Artajo
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Jose Maria Bermejo
Spanish Morocco's Deputy High Commissioner
Jose Enrique Valera
Spanish Morocco's High Commissioner (1945-1951)
France
Alphonse Juin
French Morocco's Resident General (1947-1951)
Augustin Guillaume
French Morocco's Resident General (1951-1954)
Francis Lacoste
French Morocco's Resident General (1954-1955)
Gilbert Grandval
French Morocco's Resident General (1955)
Louis Andre Dubois
French Morocco's Resident General (1955-1956)
Piene Mendes-France
Prime Minister (1954-1955); Minister of Foreign
Affairs (1954-1955); Minister of State (1956)
Edgar Faure
Prime Minister (1955-1956)
Hubert Lyautey
French Morocco's Resident General (1912-1925)
Colonial Morocco
Mohammed V
Sultan of Morocco
Allal el-Fassi
Leader of el-Istiqlal Party
159
Abd-el-Khaleq Torres
Leader of Spanish Morocco's National Reform Party
Muley Hassan Ben el Mehdi
Spanish Morocco's Caliph
160