The Morocco Question Reconsidered: Culture and Crisis in the Final Years of Moroccan Independence, 1894–1912

This paper suggests that the history of the so-called ‘Moroccan Question’ – a major issue in global diplomacy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – may be rethought through greater attention to its non-European context. International rivalry over the control of the Western Mediterranean gave rise to successive ‘Moroccan crises’ in 1905 and 1911 that were later seen as contributing to the First World War. Previous treatments have often reduced the Morocco Question to a tripartite diplomatic history involving Germany, France and Great Britain. The paper will argue that the worldview of Moroccan diplomats between 1894 and 1912 was global in its outlook and its ambition. Highly educated and trained in elite institutions, the diplomats thought and acted on a world stage; they were well versed in the culture of Europe and the wider Middle East; they read newspapers in European languages and in Arabic; and they evolved a worldwide diplomatic strategy to safeguard Moroccan independence. For years, Moroccan diplomats participated fully in negotiations to protect the country from colonial predators, deftly playing off European Powers against one another and building an extensive diplomatic and social lobbying network inside Europe to act as an interest group to look after Moroccan interests.