At the height of the Spanish Civil War, Francisco Franco explained why he viewed the continuing colonization of northern Morocco as beneficial to both sides: “the Moroccans’ love for the Spanish national cause,” declared the generalíssimo, “is not a circumstantial fact, but has deep roots.” In 1938, emboldened by this vision of a harmonious utopia of Hispano-Arab cooperation, the Tetuan-based Resident-General Juan Beigbeder sent several dozen young students to Cairo, where they resided in the Spanish-financed Bayt al-Maghrib and pursued their higher education at various Egyptian universities. Hoping to raise the status of Fascist Spain in the Arab world and thus alleviate its increasing international isolation, the Spanish authorities put a lot of hope on this mission, which they viewed as a cornerstone of their colonial oeuvre. Instead of producing a well-trained and loyal native elite, though, the Bayt al-Maghrib quickly turned into a quagmire characterized by embezzlement and permanent infighting, thus causing the Spaniards serious headaches instead of bringing forth the desired results. However, even more interesting is the fact that several of the students began to engage in nationalist activities in the Cairo by meeting Egyptian politicians, publishing in local newspapers, and joining rallies for the liberation of Palestine. Thus, instead of contributing to the greater glory of Fascist Spain before the Arab world, the young Moroccans brought their case for independence to the attention of the Egyptian public for the first time, and created networks of support that would prove pivotal for the course of the nationalist struggle during the post-WWII period. Ultimately conceding the colossal mistake Spain had made, the Cairo-based ambassador Carlos de Miranda angrily exclaimed in the spring of 1943: “the only fruit of these missions is to spur on Moroccan nationalism (…) There are a few fanatic [students], but they are all nationalists.” In conclusion, based on Arab and Spanish language sources, this project studies the internationalization of the Moroccan struggle for independence, analyzing how false ideological assumptions in combination with serious political miscalculations directly contributed to the establishment of anti-colonial nationalism in the Spanish zone. Moreover, it incorporates the Moroccan nationalist movement into contemporary academic debates on transnational political activism and thereby challenges the locally restricted focus of the historiography on this topic.