Roberts A.D. The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 7: from 1905 to 1940

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theless resumed during the 1930s, and came to present a more

serious challenge to the authorities.

In 1932 the Jama

a in Morocco renamed itself the Kutlat

al-'Amal al-watani (L'Action Nationale, or Marocaine). In Tunisia

a new group within the Destour, consisting of the young Habib

Bourguiba, Mahmoud Materi, Tahir Sfar and Bahri Guiga, began

the publication of a new newspaper, L'Action

Tunisienne.

The

group continued the association of nationalist with Islamic

sentiment when it denied the right of Tunisians naturalised as

French to be buried in a Muslim cemetery. Rioting compelled the

government to create separate cemeteries for such people;

meanwhile in 1933 U Action was banned together with the

Destour, and a new resident, Peyrouton, appointed to restore

order. In Paris, Messali Hadj was imprisoned for an attempt to

reconstitute the forbidden Etoile; in Algiers Ben Badis and his

colleagues were denied the right to preach in the mosques. In

Morocco, on the other hand, L'Action Marocaine organised the

celebration of the anniversary of the sultan's accession, and in May

1934 welcomed the sultan to Fez with an anti-French demonstra-

tion. At the end of the year the party published and presented a

Plan de

reformes marocaines

drawn up by the French-educated

members of the group. The plan called upon France to act in

accordance with the Treaty of Fez as a true protector, supervising

the progress of Moroccans towards the responsible management

of their own affairs.

The year 1934, when the government in Paris and throughout

French North Africa was assailed by the demand of the European

population for remedial action, was a critical one. The measures

to rescue the European sector of the economy contrasted with the

continued repression of manifestations of discontent on the part

of the

indigenes.

At Constantine the increasingly frequent attacks

on government officers in the region were followed in August by

riots against the Jews, of whom 24 were killed. It was the signal

for disturbances throughout the province. Bendjelloul and his

fellow members of the Federation des Elus Indigenes in the

province endeavoured to minimise the affair, to moderate a

European reaction which threatened the success of Viollette's

proposals for constitutional reform. These ran into fierce opposi-

tion in the French Senate in March 1935 on the occasion of a

fact-finding visit to Algeria by the minister of the interior,

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THE

MAGHRIB

Regnier, who came to the conclusion that there was no need for

further substantial change. Instead, a law of 5 April 1935 was

directed at all those who might incite the native population

against the sovereignty, laws and officials of France.

The riots around Constantine had meanwhile led to violence

in Tunisia, where the harvest was bad, and it was necessary to

drive the hungry back from the towns into the countryside.

Earlier in the year, the attempt of

the

moderate Chedly Kheirallah

to create

party breaking away from the Destour to negotiate with

the French authorities had been overtaken by the decisive action

of Bourguiba and his associates, who at the party congress at Ksar

Hellal in March 1934 seceded to found the Neo-Destour. With

the support of French-educated intellectuals and a popular

following in the towns and villages of the Sahel, the new

movement left the old Destour to those of higher social standing

whose uncompromising nationalism was Islamic and Arabic in

inspiration. The Neo-Destour, by contrast, captured the pro-

gramme of constitutional independence briefly put forward in

1920,

together with the old popularity of the nationalist cause. It

did so by flamboyant organisation, with processions and uniforms

in the style of the populist movements of contemporary Europe.

Peyrouton responded by arresting the leaders and redoubling the

repression to end the strikes and riots which greeted these arrests.

Confrontation throughout the Maghrib with an intransigent

French authority, however, was delayed by events in France. The

advent in May 1936 of the left-wing Popular Front, under the

premiership of Leon Blum, offered the prospect of sudden

change.

At last reorganised to recruit mainly from the Muslim

population, the Algerian Communist Party joined with the Elus

Indigenes, the Oulemas and the followers of Messali Hadj in the

Premier Congres Musulman at Algiers in June 1936 to agree upon

a joint submission to Paris. Messali alone dissented from the

charte

revendicative,

or list of demands, which emerged, demanding the

assimilation of Algerian Muslims into the body of French citizens

without prejudice to their religion, on the grounds that it denied

the possibility of eventual independence. The

charte

was rejected

by Blum. Instead, he gave his support to Viollette who, as

minister of state without portfolio, put forward

a bill to

enfranchise

some 21,000

evolues

as citizens without prejudice to their statut

Cf.

chapter

7, p. 386.

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personnel.

For most members of the Congres Musulman, this bill

took the place of the

charte

as their great hope.

For Tunisia and Morocco, Blum appointed Pierre Vienot, a

former administrator under Lyautey, as secretary of state at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the left-wing teacher Ch.-A.

Julien became secretary of a committee for the coordination of

Muslim affairs in all three territories. The appointments were

welcomed in Tunisia, where the restrictions imposed by Peyrouton

were lifted by a new governor. Bourguiba went to Paris to present

to Vienot an invitation to France to prepare Tunisia for eventual

independence. From Morocco went el-Ouezzani, expressing

similar

hopes.

An immediate change was the removal of Peyrouton

after only six months as resident in Morocco and the appointment

of General Nogues, no sympathiser with nationalism, but never-

theless a man of the school of Lyautey.

Internationally, the moment coincided with French and British

difficulties in Syria and Palestine. Correspondence with Chekib

Arslan in Geneva had developed the sense of Arab nationalism

even among the most

francisant

of the reformers. Nearer home

were events in the Spanish zone of Morocco. Since the defeat of

Abdelkrim the territory had been subjected to regular adminis-

tration through military district officers

{interventores).

Without

making promises, Spain had nevertheless favoured the notion of

Moroccan independence as a counter to French predominance in

the country as a whole. In July 1936, at the outset of his rebellion,

Franco went further, promising complete autonomy for the

territory. Nationalists were given freedom of speech and of the

press,

with the liberty to establish their own schools. Their leader,

Abdelkhaleq Torres, became minister

oihabous.

Moroccans in the

French zone were urged over the radio to demand the same rights.

The campaign quickly became a vehicle for German and Italian

propaganda, introduced into the Spanish zone by Italian news-

papers and German agents seeking to penetrate French North

Africa.

Disciples of Chekib Arslan were involved in the Nazi and

Fascist attempt to win support in the Arab world against Britain

and France. Bourguiba had taken his ideas of party political

organisation from the extreme Right. In Algeria the French Nazi

movement, the Croix de Feu, resurrected as the Parti Socialiste

Francais and the Parti Populaire Francais, attracted some support

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THE MAGHRIB

from

evolues

for programmes of land reform and citizenship.

Nothing, however, came of the excitement. When the Popular

Front fell in June 1937, discussion of Viollette's bill in the

Chamber of Deputies had been blocked by Algerian deputies, and

it was finally defeated in the Senate in December 1938. Separate

Muslim representation continued with little change. In Tunisia

Vienot merely had time to criticise over the radio the defects of

the protectorate. He refused to see the Moroccan delegation

because of the peremptory tone of its demands.

Viollette's bill was the most direct attempt hitherto to alter the

constitutional principle on which French Algeria was built. As in

1919,

it is doubtful if such a measure could have committed

even the Muslim elite at which it was aimed to the permanent

integration of Algeria and France. Its failure nevertheless

deprived the reformers, whatever their aims, of a focus. Messali

Hadj,

demanding universal suffrage and Algerian independence,

was rejected by the majority at the second Congres Musulman in

July 1937. His Etoile Nord-Africaine, banned once again earlier

in the year, had been transformed into the Parti du Peuple

Algerien, a specifically Algerian nationalist party which offered

its candidates to the Muslim electorate and at the same time took

to the streets. For this activity in opposition to the legal status of

the country, Messali and his lieutenants were imprisoned until

1939,

and reinterned upon the outbreak of war.

Other groups quarrelled among themselves. The Socialists

remained firmly for total assimilation. The Communists, anxious

lest nationalism affect the struggle against fascism, spoke of the

equality of all in an Algerian nation choosing to remain French.

The Oulemas, accepting French nationality with reluctance,

concentrated on the cultural identity of the Muslim population,

although their teaching of Islam in the mosques and Arabic in the

schools was severely hampered by French prohibitions. The

Federation des Elus split. In 1938 Bendjelloul created the Ras-

semblement Franco-Musulman Algerien to continue co-operation

with the French Left. Ferhat Abbas on the other hand organised

a Union Populaire Algerienne to appeal to the people with a

programme which harked back to the 'emir' Khaled, for equality

as Muslims, not simply as French. It was a programme which

distinguished him from Messali Hadj and his call for a single

assembly elected by universal suffrage, when in 1944 he came to

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1930-194°

demand that emancipation should be on the existing basis of

separate Muslim representation. The war, however, was necessary

to bring such proposals back into politics.

Similar splits in the nationalist movements of Morocco and

Tunisia led to violence and repression. In Morocco, el-Ouezzani

formed his Haraka al-qawmiyya or Mouvement Populaire, leaving

the majority of L'Action Marocaine to Allal al-Fassi and the more

Islamic nationalists; both were distrusted by the Socialists and

Communists as bourgeois, and in the case of Allal al-Fassi as

clericalist. Allal al-Fassi, however, reconstituted L'Action Maroc-

aine as al-Hizb al-watani, Le Parti National, under his leadership,

and exploited the excitement which began at Meknes in August

1937 with the rumour that the city's water supply was to be

diverted to irrigate French land. Rioting in the main cities broke

out in October, with many casualties, many arrests, and the

subsequent deportation of al-Fassi to Gabon.

In Tunisia the appeal of Islamic nationalism centred on Shaykh

Taalbi, who returned to the country in 1937 after

years abroad

to resume contact with his old colleagues, now the leaders of the

Vieux-Destour. In this

case,

however, the influence of his doctrine

was on the side of moderation. Challenged by his threat to their

hold over the nationalist movement, it was the radicals of the

Neo-Destour who brought about the major conflict with the

authorities. This was a year of strikes at mines and factories, and

a number of deaths when the army opened fire. In the general

indignation of Socialists, Communists and nationalists, Bourguiba

separated himself from the Left when he encouraged the revival

of the national CGTT, independent of the French trade-union

movement, and aspiring to be the sole representative of native

labour. He further separated himself from the moderates of his

own party when he turned away from collaboration to confront

the regime with militancy. A general strike in November was

followed by a second in April 1938, culminating in a riot at Tunis

for which the official figures were

demonstrators dead and more

than 150 wounded. Bourguiba and 18 others were arrested, the

Neo-Destour was dissolved, and severe restrictions placed upon

meetings, assemblies and the press. Taalbi and the Vieux-Destour

denounced their rivals, and looked forward to recovering their

lost leadership of Tunisian nationalism.

3*5

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North Africa

the

eve

the Second

World War

By 19 3

the long transition from settler farming to capital-intensive

agriculture in French North Africa was substantially complete.

The development of fruit and vegetable growing for the French

market was a promising ancillary, while phosphates, the main

mineral, could expect to share in the recovery of world agriculture

and world trade. It appeared that the European economy could

look forward to a period of profitability in which the investments

of previous years would begin to show a return. More than ever,

the European community was concentrated in the big cities, with

the prospect of industrial growth to compensate for the shrinkage

of employment in the countryside. The problems created by the

century-old attempt to install a large European population on the

land had apparently been overcome.

In Libya the attempt was energetically renewed. Despite the

enthusiasm of the 1920s, agricultural settlement had proceeded

slowly by private enterprise or through the agency of companies

like the A'zienda Tabacchi Italiani. By 1933, although 75 per cent

of the necessary capital had been lent by the state and the banks,

there wefe still no more than 7,000 settlers in Tripolitania. With

the end of the guerrilla war in Cyrenaica, the best agricultural land

in the country became available by confiscation and appropriation;

the first 150 families were installed in 1934. The coast road from

the Tunisian to the Egyptian frontier was completed in 1937.

Spectacular results, however, were only achieved with the as-

sumption of direct control of settlement by the state, and the

application of far greater funds. Under the direction of Italo

Balbo, workers were brought from Italy to help prepare the land,

sink wells and build houses in readiness for the arrival of 20,000

settlers in 1938 and a further 10,000 in 1939. By then the Italian

population had risen from 50,000 to 90,000 in five years in a

country now officially integrated into Italy. Although there may

have been little prospect that the programme would solve what

was thought to be the overpopulation of the Italian peninsula, the

effect upon Libya was considerable. By 1940 the area of European

farmland had reached about 370,000 hectares, extensively irrigated

by wells and pumps. Eight million new trees and 17 million vines

transformed the appearance of the coastal region. The problem

of the economic size of the European farm, which had affected

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1930-194°

the European settlement of Libya in the same way as in French

North Africa, was for the moment suppressed.

The Muslim population of about a million was largely dis-

regarded. Opposition to the Italians was centred on Cairo, where

the emigres gathered. In French North Africa the situation was

more complicated. The French had always been able to rely upon

a measure of complaisance and of active support for their regimes.

For many, these regimes were a source of place, power, prestige

and wealth; for others, they created the conditions under which

wealth and standing might be obtained and enjoyed. This body

of vested interest reached right down into the various communities

through the patronage of relatives and clients; to it must be added

the enthusiasm generated by the idea of France, permanently

among many of the

evolues

or regular soldiers, sporadically

among the population at large in emergencies like the outbreak

of war. Yet such support was liable to erosion.

It was not, in the first place, efficiently mobilised. Tradition was

respected, notably by Lyautey in Morocco, and democracy was

severely restricted, to maintain a paternal authority and to keep

any part played by the Muslim community in the affairs of

government to

minimum. The organisation of opinion therefore

fell to those, beginning with the most enthusiastic of the

evolues,

who were opposed either to the character or to the principle of

French rule. By 1939 their different opinions had developed into

policies and movements which already had long histories and

close connections with the Middle East as well as metropolitan

France. The continued refusal of the French to make concessions

to their demands, and the repression of all agitation, had reduced

them once again to inactivity. Neither they nor their doctrines,

however, could be abolished in this way; the growing body of

ideas and followings posed an increasing challenge to the colonial

order.

The extent of popular support for this opposition was still

uncertain. The leaders came from many different backgrounds,

without necessarily representing particular groups or classes.

Poverty, about which so much has been written in explanation

of the growth of North African nationalism, was not in itself the

cause of that nationalism, nor yet of its initial popularity. In

Algeria, the misery of the depression led directly to violence;

Messali

Hadj,

who enjoyed the largest following of any Muslim

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THE MAGHRIB

Algerian leader, exploited the theme of want. Yet the wide

following of the Parti du Peuple Algerien came in the first place

from the petite

bourgeoisie

of tradesmen and craftsmen, not from

the very poor. It was the economic discontent of people like these,

in Tunisia and Morocco as well as in Algeria, which joined with

the demands of organised labour for better pay and conditions.

In the inter-war period, such discontent had lent its weight to

nationalism rather than to Communism or Socialism, despite the

great influence of the French movements. The main reason was

Islam, which distinguished the populations by law, culture and

tradition. The political appeal of religion, however, was not

automatic. It required an effort of education to equate the

profession of faith with support for a political programme. The

most that can be said about the progress of this equation is that

the emphasis upon Islam as a national creed developed as

nationalism emerged and spread across the whole range of

opposition to the French regimes, becoming as it did so increas-

ingly populist in its appeal.

By 1939 it is probable that even in Morocco, where the Muslim

authorities of the

makh^en

were both influential and aligned with

the French, nationalist leaders working through nationalist parties

could, if they had been allowed to operate constitutionally, have

captured mass support. Their appeal to the people, however, was

designed to bring sufficient pressure on the French for what was

still

constitutional aim, the recognition by France of certain basic

rights.

The formula varied from party to party and country to

country, but was in all cases a matter of democratic reform.

Loyalty to France was still strong. In January, Tunisians welcomed

the French president Daladier with a demonstration of support

against the Italian threat to Tunisia, Djibouti and Corsica conjured

up by the unilateral Italian denunciation in December 1938 of the

Franco-Italian agreement of

193

At the outbreak of the Second

World War, it seemed that France could still rely upon her North

African subjects in a struggle with Germany.

See above, p. 7, and below, p. 383, n.70.

328

CHAPTER 7

FRENCH BLACK AFRICA

The partition of Africa had left France in nominal possession of

most of the region between the Sahara and the Congo river. It

is likely, however, that well under half the population of this

region had come under French rule, for the greater part of French

territory consisted of desert or arid savanna. From 1904, the

government-general of French West Africa, based on Dakar,

provided a colonial form of federation for seven territories:

Senegal, Mauritania, Upper Senegal and Niger, Dahomey, the

Ivory Coast, Guinea and a territory east of the river Niger which

was still under military rule. This whole area was about nine times

the size of France; the population was probably between 11 and

15 million. To the south-east, France ruled four territories:

Gabon, Moyen-Congo, Ubangi-Shari and Chad; from 1908-10

these were brought under a federal government at Brazzaville and

they were collectively known as French Equatorial Africa, with

a population one-third to one-quarter that of its vast neighbour.

A large part of French black Africa — wherever' pacification' was

in progress — remained under military authority; this applied to

Mauritania until 1905 and to Chad until 1920. In the interior of

each colony there were areas where penetration was either

precarious or non-existent; this was the case in much of French

Equatorial Africa, the arid Sahel, with its nomadic population, and

the densely forested parts of the Ivory

Coast.

Such areas were slow

to come under civil administration, if only because of shortage

of personnel. The official gauge of administrative maturity was

the regular payment of

taxes.

In theory, this had been introduced

everywhere in West Africa between 1897 and 1899 and in

Equatorial Africa in 1903; in fact it was for a long time limited

to the coastal and urban regions.

329

FRENCH BLACK AFRICA

I905-I914

Conquest and resistance

By 1908 the French had largely completed the conquest of their

African domain. Even in Equatorial Africa, where the settlement

of boundaries took longer, the

march on Chad' signalled, after

1900,

the end of the colonial share-out. 'Pacification', on the other

hand, had by no means been achieved. For different reasons two

large areas appear to have been particularly difficult to bring under

control. One was the Sahel, comprising Mauritania, Upper Volta

and Chad, where political and religious alignments, which were

both autonomous and hierarchic, organised resistance based on

the cohesive ideology of Islam. The other such zone was that of

the forest, more

less mountainous and difficult

penetrate,

where local minorities obstructed the unifying requirements

colonial rule.

both regions there was

series

resistance

movements, suppressed over a period by operations which were

both brutal and effective. The decisive years were from 1908

1912,

with

widespread attempt at subjugation during 1911.

After the traumatic experience of Algeria, the colonial admin-

istrators regarded Islam as both attractive and formidable; it was

useful for its rational organisation of hierarchic power but was

a disturbingly potent focus for opposition.

1914-16, affected

partly by the war psychosis, the usual policy throughout the Sahel

was

repress

the

upper class, which

was

thought

to be

dangerously anti-French, yet this was soon succeeded by a policy

of alliance with the leaders. Ordinary people mounted their own,

spontaneous resistance,

in the

form

local mahdisms

and

'popular' jihads which, though little known, were

crucial

feature

of the

period. Islamic authorities

did not

condemn

conquest

such, but only conquest effected

non-Muslims.

There were three possible rejoinders

the colonial challenge.

There was the

hijra

or withdrawal to a safe place, generally in the

mountains, in order to consolidate forces against the infidel. This

could

be a

preliminary

to the

jihad, the conventional war

conversion proclaimed by a Muslim ruler and was the line taken

in Mauritania. Finally there was taqiyya

prudence, which

authorised the persecuted sects

negotiate

kind

'internal

exile'. This last policy was adopted by Hamalla

Nioro

the