Aodamar Owens Deane
A brief overview of Mediterranean justifications for France and Spain’s imperial projects in North Africa
The extent to which Mediterranean ideas influenced French and Spanish imperial experiments in North Africa can be seen, not in the ways that they converge, but indeed in the manner to which they diverge and adapt according to each coloniser’s agenda. The French colonial mindset in relation to Algeria was different to their mindset, and indeed their purpose, in expanding into Morocco. Similarly, the Spanish expansion into Morocco was different to their occupying of the Western Sahara. The varying and contrasting ideas surrounding ‘Mediterraneanism’, and ideas of European and Western superiority, come together to both legitimise and justify these countries’ imperial experiments and create a very different and specific colonial situation in North Africa in comparison to the rest of the African continent.
The Mediterranean, at its most basic level, is a “represented entity”, which has been a recurring feature of historiography from antiquity to the modern day (Fenech and Pace, 2017). The importance of the Mediterranean’s representation as the so-called ‘cradle of civilisation’ influenced generations of empires and nations, leading them to believe in its ‘natural’ unity. As such, exploring the historiography of the Mediterranean and, more specifically, Mediterraneanism, “an essentially contested concept” (Horden and Purcell, 2000), is crucial in understanding what colonial France and Spain may have thought about Mediterranean unity.
Historians Horden and Purcell split Mediterranean history into two parts: firstly, the history of the Mediterranean, and secondly, the history in the Mediterranean. This first part, defined as “history either of the whole Mediterranean or of an aspect of it to which the whole is an indispensable framework,” will be the focus of this essay. That is to say that something that happened in the geographical limits of the Mediterranean (i.e., the second part that Purcell and Horden define) is not necessarily Mediterranean history, as it does not display the microcosmic elements necessary to place it within this framework. This text will then focus on the ‘history of’ rather than the ‘history in’ the Mediterranean, as it is the historiography of the Mediterranean that so influenced the European colonisers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a legacy which perhaps spans even to the twenty-first century.
An easy place to begin in tracing the historical construction of the Mediterranean is with the Roman Empire. Historians Fenech and Pace argue that there was an unmatched homogeneity of people, practices and cultures around the Mediterranean at this time that separates it from any other epoch in history. The implication here, however, is that it has diversified since. The French historian Fernand Braudel, too, writes of the homogeneity of the Mediterranean, and traces it to the so-called ‘common Mediterranean characteristics’ observable prior to the 16th century: the Mediterranean climate, the similarity on both sides of the sea in the shapes and nature of their mountains and plains, and most importantly, the transhumance of the Mediterranean – on both sides of the sea there were similar migratory patterns of peoples (Braudel, 1995).
Braudel’s text was highly influential and is mentioned and debated by many historians including several mentioned in this text. Fenech and Pace (2017) are highly critical of the “Braudelian historical tradition”, pointing to Braudel’s exclusive observation of periods when the mightiest contemporary political actors were located in the Mediterranean. Fenech and Pace argue that his choice of study until the sixteenth century “could not be more calculated”, as in the intervening years these arguments lost hold to other more convincing African, Middle Eastern and European ideas of unity.
Another important distinction in Mediterranean history is that between the “open” Maghreb (the coastal area), and the “closed” or inland Maghreb. Tunisian historian Mohamed Chérif describes the “open” Maghreb as “the promised land of all Mediterranean imperialisms: Punics, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs and Turks, not to mention the French,” (Chérif, 1975). His distinction between the coastal and inland Maghreb contradicts the unmatched homogeneity argued by Braudel, Fenech and Pace, as Chérif argues that this homogeneity is and was only observable in a certain minority of coastal people, and not in the entirety of the populations which we now know as Libyan, Moroccan, Algerian, Egyptian, etc. This division between the “open” and “closed” Maghreb can undoubtedly be seen in France’s occupation of Algeria, and Spain’s occupation of Western Sahara. Mohamed Chérif notes that “there was always a fusion between the conquerors of the day and a fraction of the African population, either by adoption – and adaptation – of the civilization of the victors… or by the more or less complete assimilation of these conquerors.” This is important, as Europeans often see and legitimise Mediterraneanism as a form of ‘European enlightenment’ of both sides of the sea. However, alongside the adaptation of European ideas and customs in North Africa, there was the assimilation of Europeans into these (supposedly pre-civilised) communities.
France’s colonial expansion into Algeria in the 1830s combines all of these historiographical concepts of Mediterraneanism. One of the earliest and clearest uses of Mediterraneanism is in the 1830 report ‘Aperçu historique, statistique et topographique sur l’état d’Alger’ (A historical, statistical, and topographical insight into the Algerian state) which was distributed to the officers of the French expansionary corps (Alleg et al, 1981). In the report, there are numerous references to the Roman Empire and Carthage, the Mediterranean Sea, and Algeria’s proximity to France and Italy: “the Mediterranean… bordered by their (the ancient people’s) most fertile cultures, their most flourishing cities, seemed like a great lake destined to be the link of the three parts of which the civilized world was then composed, the road of their commerce, the most natural means of their communications.” This reference to the Mediterranean’s fertility is echoed in Braudel’s text, and it is hugely significant in that it uses both the terms “civilised world” and “natural.” The French mission in Algeria is portrayed here as both a natural unification of an ancient common culture and as a civilising mission. This contradiction exemplifies the illogical colonial justifications for expansion: either the newly acquired land is already a part of the civilised world, and as such the unification of the territories is “natural”, or the newly acquired land needs civilising. This colonial justification presents a clear paradox, which exemplifies the absurdity of such justifications.
In order to appease all critics of imperial expansion, these conflicting justifications were evoked throughout the era of colonial expansion by French and Spanish imperialists, as discussed by Diana Davis in her work Resurrecting the Granary of Rome. French and Spanish imperial apologists “claimed that a once fertile and verdant North Africa—the classic “granary of Rome”— was desertified and deforested by Arab pastoralists beginning shortly after the 11th-century “Arab invasion” of the region.” As a result, French and Spanish imperialists legitimised the re-establishment of a previously homogenous region.
The use of Mediterraneanism as a colonial justification and the effort to re-establish a kind of Roman Empire (Fenech and Pace’s epitome of ‘Mediterranean unity’), intensified during the French Third Republic (from 1870 onwards). Prior to the Third Republic, France’s role in Algeria was restricted to military rule rather than a cohesive system of administration (Pickles, 1963). However, from 1870, echoing the achievements of the Roman Empire, an administrative structure was established, in which roads were built, marshes drained, and wine was cultivated in Algeria (Pickles, 1963).
With respect to Arab rule over North Africa, Mediterraneanism is used as justification in a slightly different way in the statement « délivrer les arabes qui gémissent sous le joug turc », or, to paraphrase, save the Arabs who suffer under Turkish rule (Alleg et al, 1981). Alleg et al illustrate that the French justified colonial expansion as they saw themselves as liberators of the Arab people from the Ottoman Empire. Here, it is important to note that their version of Mediterraneanism did not include the Turks, which points to the ways in which these imperial powers have adapted (and continue to adapt) Mediterranean unity to suit their political agendas.
There were other justifications for expansion that did not point to Mediterranean unity. One such narrative propagandised by the French government was that the occupation of Algeria was an effort to end piracy, and to establish France as the ruler of the Mediterranean sea (Alleg et al, 1981 and Gillespie, 1960). A more obvious reason for invasion was to divert internal political discontent (King Charles X was desperately trying to save his tottering regime) and to strengthen national pride (Gillespie, 1960). Another perceived reason for expansion was an attempt, as identified by Jennifer Sessions (2019), to continue on in the Napoleonic tradition which, like before, was linked to the general idea of the civilising mission of the French empire and its rule by assimilation (Abulafia, 2011). As always, there are clear links here with the Roman Empire. In fact, Napoleon saw himself as following a kind of Roman tradition of ‘empire’, not least indicated by his choice of crown: a golden laurel wreath (Roberts, 2014).
“This “Andalus-centric” narrative of Moroccan history argues that the Andalusi culture did not stop with the Christian reconquest of Spain in 1492, but instead, moved from the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco.”
Spain used a different era of Mediterranean history to justify Franco’s colonial expansion into Morocco. Historian Eric Calderwood argues that the legacy of medieval Muslim Iberia, known as ‘al-Andalus’, served to justify Spain’s colonisation of Morocco and also to define the Moroccan national culture that supplanted colonial rule (Calderwood, 2018). This “Andalus-centric” narrative of Moroccan history argues that the Andalusi culture did not stop with the Christian re-conquest of Spain in 1492, but instead, moved from the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco(Calderwood, 2018). In historiographical terms, Calderwood identifies that many writers have celebrated the Convivencia of al-Andalus: the so-called “coexistence” of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in medieval Iberia(Calderwood, 2018). This references a supposed religious diversity of Mediterraneanism instead of the more widely recognised split between Christian Europe and Muslim North Africa. In Colonial al-Andalus, Calderwood traces this supposedly timeless narrative of the Andalusi culture to the mid-1800s, when Spanish politicians and intellectuals first used it to press for Morocco’s colonisation.
With regards to Spanish colonialism in Morocco, a good place to start is with the primary source text ‘Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco’ (1912). In the treaty, the French recognised that Spain has the “right to maintain peace” in Morocco and as such “assist the Moroccan government in introducing all the administrative, economic, financial, judicial and military reforms which it requires”. Thus, Spain established a protectorate in Morocco, that is to say it controlled and protected the Moroccan system of government, as France had in Tunisia. This contrasts to the French rule by assimilation in Algeria, which aimed at assimilating the Algerian people into a French style of administration.
The occupation of the Spanish Sahara differs from Morocco, as it was harder to legitimise for its being geographically situated on the Atlantic. In geo-political terms, it is more associated with the Mediterranean and ideas of Spanish legitimacy in Morocco, but also with their occupation of places like The Canary Islands: a military and trade outpost on the way to South America (Rézette, 1975). Historian Rézette (1975) argues that Western Sahara “has never ceased to be under the political, economic and cultural influence of Morocco” and as such, upon Morocco being taken over by Spain, little changed in its ruling. Rézette also explores some of the more sinister impetuses for the colonisation of the Western Sahara. While it was, and continues to be, an extremely sparsely populated place, it is rich in phosphate deposits, which Morocco claimed ownership of as a result of it being “geologically a continuation of Moroccan deposits” (Rézette, 1975). This claim echoes Braudel’s comments on the perceived geographical homogeneity of the Mediterranean.
In conclusion, varying ideas surrounding Mediterraneanism were used as justifications by both France and Spain for their colonisation of North Africa. Each stage and each site of colonisation used a different definition of ‘Mediterraneanism’ to legitimise their right to the land. These different justifications were often employed to cover up the more sinister impetuses for colonisation, such as financial or material gain, the results of which often caused much more damage to the colonised country than the stated ‘good’.
Bibliography
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“Treaty Between France and Spain Regarding Morocco.” The American Journal of International Law, 7 (2) (New York, 1913) p.81, Available at: www.jstor.org/stable/2212275.
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