Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  LYAUTEY WAS ACUTELY CONSCIOUS that it was the behaviour of French troops in the immediate aftermath of their arrival that would determine whether the French presence was accepted pragmatically or resisted with hatred. Self-respect demanded that Moroccans test the strength of newcomers by combat, and they expected a winner to show implacable strength and confidence. But once the French were clearly identified as victors, Lyautey’s policy depended on achieving recognition that this new, strong tribe had more to offer than previous in-comers, and the losers more to gain by accommodation than by defiance. His instructions to officers in newly occupied areas were unambiguous and forceful – for instance, to those planted among the Beni Snassen of the northern frontier:Sector commanders must above all work to make their post a centre of attraction for the natives. Following repression, the immediate objective is to achieve material and moral pacification, by accustoming the locals to contact with us and making them appreciate the benefits – our purchase of foodstuffs and firewood, protection, arbitration of local disputes, improvement of communications, medical assistance, etc. [Commanders] must supervise strictly the conduct of our troops – particularly European troops: no provocation, no abuse of authority, no violence, no rape. As to local customs, the people’s religious observances, their zaouias and shrines will be scrupulously respected.29

  At this stage in his career – before the 1912 Protectorate treaty, when he himself would become closely identified with the sultanate – the comparison that Lyautey presumably intended the tribes to draw was with the Maghzan. Historically, the sultans’ claims on them had been pressed by means of destructive raids followed almost at once by the retreat of the government troops, leaving their ruined victims as easy pickings for the next marauders (who were never long in arriving). Lyautey intended to justify France’s claim on the caids’ obedience by making some positive difference to their lives, without threatening either their status or their religious sensitivities. Given the historical precedents, creating a comparatively favourable impression did not demand any unusual tenderness.

  THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION suddenly became threatening early in 1905. Sultan Abd el Aziz was flirting with German diplomats, and in March, at the request of the Wilhelmstrasse, the Kaiser interrupted a Mediterranean cruise on his yacht to visit Tangier. There he made a public speech expressing support for Moroccan sovereignty and concern for Germany’s commercial interests, which nerved Abd el Aziz to assert himself against the French negotiators. More damagingly, it caused a Franco-German confrontation and a war-scare in France, and when Prime Minister Rouvier undermined his position the long-serving Théophile Delcassé resigned the Foreign Ministry in June. This stirred British support for France (a sympathy the foundation of which had been Delcassé’s great achievement), and an international conference over Morocco was convened in January – April 1906 at Algeciras in Spain. Thanks to Delcassé’s previous groundwork, French, British and Spanish cooperation ensured that by the time the conference ended, German ambitions had been foiled and France had achieved wide recognition of her primacy in Morocco. Disappointed in any hope of enlisting German help to free him from French tentacles, on 18 June 1906 Abd el Aziz was obliged to sign the Act of Algeciras, ceding wide powers to a French-controlled central bank and Franco-Spanish port authorities.30

  During 1905, Lyautey had continued to press for a free hand on the frontier, ostensibly to protect the advancing railway, which reached Colomb Béchar that July.31 Although cross-border raiders were now having to take greater care, some sizeable parties were still prepared to try their luck. In January, for instance, Lyautey wrote with satisfaction of 3rd (Mounted) Company’s interception, at the Oued Nesli ten days out from Berguent, of a strong Shaamba raid: the légionnaires ‘made a serious confiture of them’ (one of that company’s lieutenants was Paul Rollet, back from Madagascar).32 Lyautey believed – mistakenly – that the departure of Delcassé would finally sink the ‘Maghzan policy’, and anticipated a relaxing of restrictions; his short-sighted view of this was clearly expressed in a letter to Eugène Étienne on 2 March 1906, in which he criticizedthis idea of building a strong state adjacent to your own (unless you hold all the strings); of creating unity where there was only division; of establishing an entity conscious of itself and its strength, where before there had been only something nebulous . . . 33

  (In a few years’ time, when he himself was faced with the responsibility not merely for achieving local pacification but for ‘nation-building’ on a defeated enemy’s territory, Lyautey would be reminded of what Governor-General Lanessan had told him in Tonkin about the advantages of preserving a functioning native power structure.)

  By spring 1906, Lyautey’s tactics were bringing undeniable results, quietly and at low cost (that April, the Army were even inviting politicians and rich tourists to visit peaceful Figuig, an exotic spectacle for the discerning traveller). The markets established at Beni Ounif and Colomb Béchar were proving to be increasingly attractive to Dawi Mani and Ouled Jarir caravan-masters who were prepared to cross the Hammada eastwards, since the arithmetic of the new trade link with Algeria was simply unanswerable. A load of dates bought in the Tafilalt could be sold at Colomb Béchar or Beni Ounif at 100 per cent profit, and French sugar bought there could be sold in the Tafilalt at an even greater margin. This provocative competition with the Tafilalt – Fes trade route coincided with the Act of Algeciras, which inflamed anti-French feeling by its revelation of the shaming impotence of Abd el Aziz’s sultanate, and a consequent increase in banditry raised the costs of the trans-Atlas route even further. Firebrands in the Tafilalt tried to impose, by threats, a trade embargo on the Colomb Béchar route, but this crumbled in the winter of 1906 – 1907.

  Paris rejected Lyautey’s request for permission to take another step westwards, to Boudenib on the Oued Guir; nevetheless, his achievements were so obvious that in December 1906 he was promoted to général de division. His third star was coupled with appointment to the command of Oran Division (in which post he made sure that no future commander at Ain Sefra would enjoy the long leash that he had obtained for himself). Although calls for jihad in 1906 had come to nothing, workaday raids – particularly by Ait Khabbash Berbers – periodically crossed the Hammada du Guir all the way to the Zousfana and Saoura oases. These ventures were not without their risks, however, as Lyautey’s drill continued to bite.34

  IN 1906 THE LEGION MOUNTED COMPANIES were circulating not only on the high plains but also up on the Hammada du Guir, and exercising their rights of ‘hot pursuit’ under the Act of Algeciras. In a letter, and years later in a report to the War Ministry from Oujda in 1913, Lyautey expressed his glowing opinion of these units:The Legion Mounted Company is an excellent tool if one knows how to use it. It is essentially a unit of mounted rifles. It has all the qualities of elite infantry – discipline, endurance, steadiness under fire – but also speed and range of action.

  . . . Since 1881 the Mounted Companies have rendered services without number. This one company in each regiment may almost be said to have made half the contribution of that regiment during the pacification of the Sud-Oranais . . . Thanks to its mobility, the Mounted Company has a moral influence of great value. It is ‘the Guard’: it provides a considerable moral support to the native troops; and it is desirable that the conqueror should be represented by white troops in every action and in all newly acquired territory.35

  Capable of anything between 30 and 50 miles in 24 hours, the mule companies could pursue raiders encumbered with stolen livestock with every hope of success, and if the district officers’ intelligence was good enough they could sometimes intercept them before they struck. The 100 rifles of the usual half-company were enough to ensure the annihilation of any normal-sized djich unwise enough to stand and fight, and, given a few days’ notice, a converging combination of a couple of the companies could offer a formidable threat to even an (extremely rare) war party of several hundred warriors.

  If the firepower half of the equati
on took care of itself, its mobility was achieved at punishing cost. The légionnaires volunteered for these elite units; Lyautey did not want very big men, who were too heavy for the mules, but recruited by the same criteria as laid down for the light cavalry and dragoons – men between 5ft 5ins and 5ft 8ins tall, 22 to 35 years old, thick-set and good marchers. General O’Connor wrote that their duty was so exhausting that none stayed in the ranks for longer than a year at a time; in 1903, Lyautey found that the mounted companies’ availability for operations was often compromised by their rapid turnover of personnel, and he introduced a staggered schedule of systematic replacements to counter this.36 As the spearhead for his operations, ‘la Montée’ spent a great deal more time on the march than the foot companies holding forts, and constant exertion in a wide variety of harsh terrain and weather conditions naturally took its toll; by the end of a patrol the men were dirty, bearded and often ragged. In the high summer, a missed or fouled well could put the lives of tired men and beasts in real peril; when it rained they slept in the mud in sodden blankets, and torrential flash floods were a deadly threat to campsites near watercourses. On the high plains snow could lie until late spring in bad years – in April 1908 the 2nd (Mounted)/1st RE were surprised by a blizzard on the steppe between Ain ben Khelil and Forthassa Gharbia, and suffered such high casualties that the unit was temporarily removed from the order of battle.37

  The usual speed was the marching pace of the men on foot, but if necessary the mules could trot and the men double-march for a while; on such forced marches the men changed places more often than the usual hourly intervals. Although they marched a little to the side to avoid the dust, the men on foot kept close to the riders so that they could change places quickly, the rider pulling his mate up from the right as he dismounted to the left at the hourly whistle and the order ‘Changez montez!’. The riding man was walled in front and back by two carefully arranged stacks of equipment and rations that supported him like the high saddle of a medieval knight. The senior man in each mule-pair was known as the ‘titulaire’ or proprietor, the junior as his ‘doubleur’; the former was responsible for the mule’s condition, and faced severe punishment if the evening inspection found any evidence of neglect. (The heavy load needed careful balancing, and even failing to brush the hair all in the same direction before blanketing and saddling could cause chafing sores.)

  Unless a légionnaire was unlucky enough to be allocated a mule that had been ill-treated during breaking by its civilian breeder, the ‘brêle’ was normally a biddable companion, and in the way of soldiers most men became fond of their beasts. Natural affection reinforced the doctrine that a man’s life might depend on always caring for his mount before himself, and those occasions when human survival demanded that a mule be marched to death distressed the hardest légionnaire. When shots were fired, getting the mules under cover was the first priority, and one man in eight stayed back as a mule-holder (holding the reins in the middle of a circle of four beasts, heads inward), while the others deployed into a skirmish line. Mules naturally did best on regular feed but would eat almost anything, though they were fussier than the usually more desperate horses about the state of the water they would accept. If properly treated, they were resistant to most equine diseases and were remarkably patient, hardy and enduring; on a long march over the grassy high plains a mule unsaddled and allowed to roll and kick for about 15 minutes would then march on contentedly for many more miles.

  The best eyewitness description of a mule-infantry march across the Hammada du Guir itself comes from a generation later, but Jean Martin’s interwar memoir is equally relevant to Lyautey’s first Moroccan campaign. It was Martin’s first patrol, and he was already saddle-sore and worn out by two days on the march when his half-company reached the Hammada. This completely waterless plateau had to be crossed in 24 hours, starting at night. Late in the day they climbed steep goat-tracks up the eastern escarpment in single file, reaching the lip as the blood-red sun sank behind the horizon ahead, its light ‘reflected in a crescent moon glowing in the blackening sky. But even in this failing light that briefly warmed the earth to the colour of faint pink the hammada appeared bald, brooding and inhospitable as it stretched to the horizon, limitless as a dessicated sea’.

  The pace was kept down to spare the mules’ hoofs ‘on the large, ink-black stones’, but dust was still lifted by a ‘wind that rose cold out of the dark plain . . . Those on muleback swayed in a fitful slumber’ between their walls of kit. A grande halt of two hours was called at midnight; each man had to pour out a contribution from the day’s 2-litre ration in his waterbottle to make coffee, over small fires of twigs that they carried with them. After an hour to prevent them getting chilled, the mules were unsaddled and rested for another hour before the march resumed:Soon the sun rose into a sky bleached of colour, which rapidly became so heavy with heat that it seemed to hang menacingly over the heads of the silent soldiers. Those on foot moved forward with stiff, wooden steps that betrayed increasing fatigue . . . A mule faltered, and had to be unsaddled and left behind. Before the day was out, four others were abandoned in the same way. The weariness felt by the soldiers was more than physical; the hammada cast a spell of profound melancholy. It offered no concessions to the senses, nothing upon which the eye could rest – no wisp of grey vegetation, no fold of ground – nothing but a lugubrious plain over which stones lay sprinkled like peppercorns on an enamel plate . . .

  At about noon they spotted the cairn marking the path down the far escarpment, but the first well they reached contained only a small green puddle foul with dead rats, and even the horses would not drink. It was long after dark the next night when the patrol finally reached a post, by which time men and mules alike were badly distressed by thirst and exhaustion. The Hammada du Guir was known to be something special even among seasoned veterans.38

  AT THE END OF A NORMAL DAY’S MARCH a camp was pitched on rising ground, if possible close to a water source. However exhausted they were, the légionnaires had to turn to and gather rocks to build murettes d’Afrique all round the square perimeter – little walls about 3 feet high by 18 inches thick, to provide cover from night-time sniping. Bivouac tents were raised, the rifles were stacked in threes en faiseaux, sentries were posted outside the four corners of the camp, and armed men were sent out for water and firewood. The mules were rested, unsaddled, then allowed to roll for a while before being watered under watchful escort, fed, and hobbled to graze; the duty corporal checked each beast’s condition and gave basic veterinary care, and overnight their tethers were attached to a staked-out chain. Meanwhile the evening soupe was cooked. Spring water might be clear, but like the more usual standing water it was always boiled; well water could not be used for cooking rice or lentils, and the fact that it would not lather soap was a sinister sign. Even on wilderness patrols the men received their wine ration (though some chose not to drink while in the field, and used their ration as currency – two mugs of wine bought a man an extra hour in the saddle). After the evening stew few men had the energy to sit up chatting over more than one pipeful of tobacco; the fires were put out and they turned in soon after sunset, ready for a pre-dawn start.39 New men suffered badly from fatigue and sores, but once they had settled in they built up their endurance impressively. Unit diaries show surprisingly few cases of sunstroke or typhoid, though dysentery was a frequent and demoralizing problem, and blankets and boots always had to be checked for black scorpions, tarantulas and horned vipers.

  A misuse that degraded the fitness of the mounted infantry over time was their frequent employment for brute labour. This was not only a matter of building the new outposts they planted, but of driving miles of new tracks between them – breaking up rocks with hammer, crowbar and explosives, levelling the debris with pick and shovel, and sinking wells as they progressed (sometimes the men were even set to digging for signs of coal and minerals). While their ability to turn their hand to any task was a matter of pride, these labour details meant
camping in the wilderness for weeks on end in all kinds of weather, after which worn and sickly men might find themselves sent off on a long patrol without time to recover their strength.40

  Such work began with mapping by the officers – there were few Engineers on the frontier, and in 1900 combat officers of all armies were still trained to make accurate sketch-maps and topographical drawings. Some officers became specialists, and the map of the Djebel Béchar along the lower Zousfana drawn by Lieutenant Poirmeur of 3rd (Mounted)/1st RE in November 1903 is an impressive piece of observation and neat penmanship. Squared up, Poirmeur’s first effort was traced and circulated by Ain Sefra Subdivision, and on each subsequent sortie patrol commanders were required to extend from this original into the white spaces. After the day’s march they carefully wrote up their saddle notes about the terrain and the water points, and the glow of the officer’s candle through the tent-canvas each night was usually the last light showing as the légionnaires fell asleep. The paramount need to locate water obliged these officers to study geology, for which some discovered a new enthusiasm.41 The men were no less starved of novelty than the officers; in November 1907, while the 24th (Mounted)/1st RE were labouring in miserably wet weather on a track at Gherassa south of Colomb Béchar, Sergeant Lefèvre recorded:Our captain is a real geologist, who communicates his sacred fire to us . . . Everyone has become something of a collector; magnificent stones encrusted with ancient seashells are plentiful in these streambeds . . . This work interests everybody, and some of the men – quite uninstructed – are soon earnestly discussing primary and secondary strata, and the different traces of antedeluvian vegetation to be found in this terrain42