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Spanish Morocco:

حماية إسبانيا في المغرب
Protectorado español de Marruecos
Spanish protectorate of Morocco

Protectorate of Spain

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1913 – 1956

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Flag

Location of Spanish protectorate of Morocco

Map of the northernmost territories belonging to the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco (1912–56)

Capital

Tétouan

Language(s)

Arabic, Spanish

Religion

Catholic, Muslim

Political structure

Protectorate

High Commissioners

- 1913

Felipe Alfau y Mendoza

- 1951-56

Rafael García Valiño y Marcén

Historical era

Interwar period

- Treaty of Fez

March 30, 1912

- Established

February 27, 1913

- Independence

April 7, 1956

Currency

Spanish peseta

Spanish protectorate of Morocco (Arabic: حماية إسبانيا في المغرب‎) (Spanish: Protectorado español de Marruecos) was the area of Morocco under colonial rule by the Spanish Empire, established by the Treaty of Fez in 1912 and ending in 1956, when both France and Spain recognized Moroccan independence.

1 Territorial borders
2 Spanish historical claims
3 The protectorate
4 Morocco gains sovereignty
5 List of High Commissioners
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading

[edit] Territorial borders

The territories of Spanish protectorate of Morocco included northern Morocco (the territory in between the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which have been Spanish since the 16th century and 15th century respectively), the Tarfaya Strip, and Ifni. The capital of Spanish protectorate of Morocco was Tetuán (Tétouan).

The rest of the country was ruled by France, under the name of French Morocco, also from 1912 to 1956.

The city of Tangier was declared an international zone, though this status was suspended during World War II when it was provisionally occupied by Spanish troops, from 14 June 1940, on the pretext that an Italian invasion was imminent^[1].

The Republic of the Rif led by the guerilla leader Abd El-Krim was a breakaway state that existed in the Rif region from 1921 to 1926, when it was dissolved by joint expedition of the Spanish Army of Africa and French forces.

[edit] Spanish historical claims

Ceuta had been Portuguese before becoming Spanish in 1580. The city of Melilla had been part of Spain since 1497. As for the rest of territories other than these plazas de soberanía, most of them they were only gained after by the middle of the 19th century and, specially, after 1912 and the First Moroccan Crisis.

In the late 19th century, Queen Isabella II of Spain encouraged the officers of southern Spain to curb the migration of unauthorized poor Spaniards to the new territories.

[edit] The protectorate

The Protectorate system was established during the Second Spanish Republic, technically it didn't include the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which had been part of Spain from an early moment of its history and so were regarded as Spanish proper territory.

The legal Islamic qadis system was formally maintained.

The Moroccan Sephardi Jews—many of them living in this part of the Maghreb after being expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1497 respectively after the end of the Reconquista process—flourished in commerce, profiting from the similarity of Spanish and Ladino language and benefitting from the tax-exempt area in Tangier and a flourishing trading activity in the area.

Spanish protectorate of Morocco had a key role at the inception of the Spanish Civil War. The uprising against the Republican Government started there, with the Spanish troops stationed in Spanish protectorate of Morocco becoming the core of the Nationalist Army. The Nationalists also recruited a consierable number of Moroccan troops who were sent over to the battlefields in Spain.

The radical POUM Party advocated an anti-colonialist policy whereby the Republican Government would support the independence of Spanish protectorate of Morocco and in this way touch off a rebellion at Franco's back and disaffection among the Moroccan troops fighting in Spain. However, the Republican Government rejected any such idea - which would have likely resulted in conflict with France, the colonial ruler of the other portion of Morocco - and the Arab troops remained loyal to the Nationalist cause.

After Francisco Franco came to power in Spain, paradoxically, the protectorate enjoyed more political freedom than Franco-era Spain proper^{[citation needed]}, allegedly because local Muslim troops were loyal from the very beginning to Franco, who was serving in África—as the Protectorate was informally known in the Spanish military parlance. Franco was the military commander of the Spanish protectorate of Morocco at the time of his uprising and from there he started it. He was backed by a noticeable number of Moroccan Muslim troops in the following Spanish Civil War. Franco was based in Tetouan.

Thus, there were political parties in the Protectorate—unlike in the rest of Spain—and the Moroccan nationalist press would criticize the Spanish authorities, contrasting with the Spanish single party and state-controlled press in the rest of the country.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Morocco gains sovereignty

In 1956, when French Morocco became independent, Spain discontinued the Protectorate and surrendered most of its occupied territories to the newly independent Morocco but retained control of certain regions, including: Ceuta, Melilla and the rest of plazas de soberanía, Sidi Ifni, Tarfaya and the Spanish Sahara (Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro regions). The Moroccan Army of Liberation waged a war against Spanish forces, that started from Ifni and spread south to Rio de Oro. As a result of this war, Spain in 1958 returned Tarfaya to Morocco. Morocco continued to lay claim over the remaining regions, and in 1969, it obtained the region of Ifni.

Morocco claims Ceuta and Melilla as integral parts of the country, considering them to be under foreign occupation, comparing their status to that of Gibraltar, while Spain regards them as constituent parts of its territory.