The Conquest of Morocco

At the turn of the century, the African country closest to Europe geographically was probably the least known. Morocco was a nation yet to emerge from the Middle Aged, violent and primitive, a place ruled by local warlords out of mud castles, and swept by religious fanaticism. To strike out from Tangiers was to enter a time capsule- emperors, slaves, harems, fortified towns, filth, superstition, blood feuds, and barbarism. Yet in the mad scramble for African colonies, backward and poverty-stricken Morocco had one great attraction: it was available. In 1903, with the posting to Africa of one of the oddest of all French military figures, General Hubert Lyautey, France undertook to change this state of affairs, and by the time World War I broke out the conquest was virtually complete. This book tells the story of France's last great colonial adventure.