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Beyond Paradoxes and Contradictions: The Trajectory of Amir ʿAbd al-Mālik during WWI
Abstract
This presentation will examine new perspectives and approach new debates. Indeed, local dynamics in North Africa and particularly in Morocco during the First World War have been largely ignored for various reasons. Our case study will focus on the uprising that started in Taza in 1915 and lasted until after the end of the First World War. One of the main actors is ʿAbd al-Mālik, the youngest son of Abd al-Qādir al-Jazāirī, who took refuge in these same territories more than a quarter of a century earlier. Born in Syria and raised in the Middle East, he came to Morocco around 1902. His ambivalent trajectory is perceived in historiography as the fruit of foreign power instrumentalisation. However, these approaches have largely ignored the perspective of the actor, with a reading grid focused on the relations between the great European powers and their will to instrumentalise. It seems interesting to us to consider the duality of its action, by re-situating it in a more local perspective. When the war broke out in 1914, ʿAbd al-Mālik was employed by the French administration as a police officer in the port of Tangier. In March 1915, he sent his whole family to Tetouan, a city under the Spanish Protectorate, out of reach of the French authorities. Then, he suddenly abandoned his post to find refuge in the North and to fight France. ʿAbd al-Mālik’s entry into the dissent in March 1915 can be considered a turning point in the resistance movement and uprisings in Morocco. He managed to mobilise powerful support to continue his revolt throughout the war. ʿAbd al-Mālik benefited from the support of Germany and the Ottoman Empire who sent him officers and other reinforcements, such as German legionnaires. ʿAbd al-Mālik spent about 20 years of his life in Morocco, nine of them (1915-1924) in dissidence. At the end of the war, he wandered between the two borders of the French and Spanish protectorates. Then, during the last five years (1919-1924), his collaboration with Spain took many by surprise because he condemned and fought the movement of ben ‘Abd al-Krim. Because of his different positions, he was considered versatile. As early as 1917, France was suspicious of Spain’s secret support for ʿAbd al-Mālik. This contribution draws from various archives and documents throughout different sides of the conflict, such as Morocco, the Ottoman Empire, France, Germany, Great-Britain and Spain.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Maghreb
Sub Area
None