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As a North African country, Morocco's political relations with its neighbors are "full of gunpowder", especially Algeria, although the two countries are extremely close in ethnicity and culture, but the two countries have always been tense due to territorial disputes, political differences and geopolitical conflicts of interest.
The location of the two countries
The two countries once went to war in 1963, and then engaged in a confrontation for hegemony in Northwest Africa for more than half a century, constantly staging a regional arms race, expulsion of expatriates, and the severance of diplomatic relations. The 1,200-kilometre-long undemarcated border between the two countries has not yet been resolved.
Where did Morocco's territorial dispute with Algeria come from? Who is the power of Morocco or Algeria to dominate northwest Africa?
Undefined national borders
Maghreb Twins
Morocco is located in western North Africa, across the sea from the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, and is known as the Maghreb (Arabic "Land of Sunset") countries along with Algeria and other countries.
Like the other two Maghreb countries, historic Morocco was home to Berbers (nomads in North Africa) and was ruled by countries such as the Roman Empire.
Maghreb countries
In the 7th century, the Arab Empire, which emerged from the Arabian Peninsula, rose rapidly. With the blessing of the emerging Islamic faith, Arab warriors were invincible and conquered large swathes of West Asia and North Africa. Wherever the army went, the Islamic faith took root.
The Berbers of the Maghreb converted to Allah, and the Berbers of the coastal zone merged with the Arabs to become a branch of the Arabs, while the Berbers in the interior continued their nomadic traditions.
At the beginning of the 8th century, the Arab army used Morocco as a springboard to conquer the Iberian Peninsula across the sea, beginning seven centuries of Islamic rule in the region.
Arab Empire
By the 10th century, the once-powerful Arab Empire was divided, and numerous separatist regimes emerged in the Maghreb. In 1040, the Arabized Berbers established the Murabit dynasty in western Maghreb, which became the precursor of the Moroccan state.
At its peak, the Murabit dynasty controlled the Algerian coast to the east and the Niger River basin in West Africa to the south, and was the first power in Northwest Africa at that time, and the territory of the Murabit dynasty was also the prototype of the "Greater Morocco" territory pursued by Moroccan activists today.
Murabit dynasty
In 1147, the powerful Murabit dynasty collapsed and was replaced by other Arab-Berber regimes in Morocco.
Dynastic wars continued in other parts of the Maghreb, with the Hafs dynasty and the Kingdom of Tlemcen in the early 13th century being the precursors of present-day Tunisia and Algeria.
At the same time as the situation in the Maghreb changed, the Ottoman Empire, founded by the Turks, rose strongly in the 14th century. In 1517, the Ottoman army conquered Egypt and Libya, extending its tentacles into North Africa.
The local rulers of Tunisia and Algeria submitted to the Ottoman sultans, who recognized their local dominance. This was the limit of Ottoman expansion, and rulers in Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere even had the right to build armies and mint currency, acting like independent kingdoms.
Ottoman Empire
For Morocco, the westernmost part of the Maghreb, the Ottoman Empire was beyond its reach. The Ottoman Empire replaced Algeria and Morocco in drawing a small border along the Mediterranean coast, and to the south was the vast Sahara Desert, where no border was set. Although not bothered by the Turks, life in Morocco is not comfortable.
In 1492, Spain and Portugal completely expelled the Muslim regime from the Iberian Peninsula, but the two Christian kingdoms did not stop and launched an attack on Morocco, which was across the sea. The Spanish-Portuguese army did not take advantage, but some towns along the coast of Morocco fell into Spanish-Portuguese hands.
Portuguese invasion
While wrestling with the Christians, Morocco itself has also achieved a regime change. In 1666, the Alawite dynasty established its dominance over Morocco.
The dynasty continues to this day, after King Mohammed VI of Morocco, who received the World Cup players in Qatar, was the 22nd monarch of the Alawite dynasty.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Morocco under the Alawite dynasty was vast, including present-day Morocco, Western Sahara, all of Mauritania, and western Algeria.
Morocco and the Ottoman Empire carved up sub-Saharan African territories and had a huge impact on Mediterranean trade.
The glory of Morocco and the Ottoman Empire did not continue, and after the 19th century, the European countries that played the leading role in industry became stronger and stronger, while the inevitable decline of the Ottoman and Morocco with infighting and backward economic models widened the gap between them and the European powers.
After the decline of the Ottoman Empire, its control over remote areas was further weakened, and Algeria, the Balkans and other regions became targets for expansion and annexation by the great powers.
In 1830, an angry Algerian dei (the official position of local ruler) because of France's arrears in the purchase of grain, struck the French minister with a fan in his hand. Lord Dei did not expect that his fan would completely rewrite the history of Algeria for the next century and a half.
France used this as an excuse to send troops to conquer Algeria, Dei went into exile, and the Ottoman Empire lost nominal control of Algeria.
Morocco was wary of the French invasion of Algeria and provided aid to the Algerian resisters. The resisters operated on the border between the two countries, and after the French attack was successful, they retreated into Morocco, leaving the French army exhausted.
In order to cut off Moroccan aid, the French launched a military operation against Morocco and quickly defeated it. In 1844, France began border negotiations with Morocco, and the French plan was to follow the Algerian-Moroccan border under the previous Ottoman rule.
The boundary is divided into northern and southern sections, with the northern section stretching from the mouth of the Keith River to the Teni Isa West Mountains, with a well-defined line, but the southern section is vague due to its proximity to the Sahara Desert.
France believed that the ambiguity of retaining the southern sector would facilitate its continued expansion to the south, and Morocco, accustomed to this pattern of division, agreed to the French proposal.
In 1845, Farmo signed the Treaty of Lara-Marnia, which established a 165-kilometre border between the Mediterranean Sea and the Teneza Mountains.
Morocco-Algeria border at the end of the 19th century
South of Teneza West and north of the Gil Desert, Famo clarified the tribal affiliation but did not delineate a clear boundary. As for the boundary between the Gil Desert further south-west and Western Sahara, the question of demarcation was not considered at all because "the desert lacked water to inhabit people".
The Larra-Marnia Pact, the first boundary treaty between Moahs, was introduced by France to the modern concept of borders in North Africa, but it laid the seeds for future territorial disputes over Moahs.
Schematic diagram of the treaty
Servants of France
In addition to North Africa, France has stepped up its expansion in other parts of Africa, hoping to control more resources, populations and markets in the race between European powers to carve up Africa.
The French made North and West Africa their main colonial direction, the French entered and conquered the West African hinterland along passages such as the Niger River, and Tunisia in North Africa was also controlled by France in 1881.
Partition Africa
Morocco was slightly stronger and retained its independence temporarily, but France, through loans, controlled Moroccan customs and taxes at the end of the 19th century.
France also continued to expand the southern borders of Algeria and continue to penetrate Morocco, and many desert nomadic tribes that had submitted to Morocco turned to France. By the end of the 19th century, Morocco and French Algeria were intertwined for 1,500 kilometers, of which only 165 kilometers had a border.
In 1900, France seized the Moroccan-administered area of Vahlan . Morocco, knowing that it could not stand up to France, demanded that the demarcation of the border between the two countries continue to be improved.
Vahlan is the second largest city in Algeria
The blurred borders are conducive to France's encroachment on Morocco, but France cannot say it explicitly, and can only find a high-sounding reason to prevaricate Morocco:
"The border of Moa is inhabited by a large number of nomadic tribes, and the demarcation of the border is not conducive to their migration".
Despite the persistence of the Moroccans, France and Mexico signed two consecutive border agreements between 1901 and 1902. France did not demarcate Algeria's border with Morocco, but agreed to set up posts and tax cards in the intertwined zone of power.
French encroachment on Morocco
At the beginning of the 20th century, the African continent was largely carved up. Morocco, despite French influence, remained nominally independent, which attracted the covetousness of other countries.
Between 1905 and 1911, two "Moroccan crises" broke out between France, Britain, and Germany over Morocco. Although France successfully resolved the crisis, it also realized that it had to annex Morocco as soon as possible.
Moroccan crisis cartoons
In 1912, tribes in central Morocco rebelled over heavy debts. The Moroccan sultan, unable to suppress it, turned to France for help, and the French army immediately marched into the Moroccan capital of Fes under the banner of "protecting the people".
The Moroccan sultan knew that he had led wolves into the house, but he was unable to return to heaven, so he had to sign the Treaty of Fez with France, handing over national rights to France, and the sultan living in Fez became a puppet of the French, and Morocco has since become a French protectorate.
In the same year, French troops marched north from Senegal, West Africa, and incorporated the Mauritanian tribal areas formerly loyal to the Moroccan sultan (present-day Mauritania) into the French West African colony. Western Sahara, between the Moroccan mainland and Mauritania, was annexed by Spain as early as 1886.
Morocco was a French colony in a broad sense like Algeria, but Algeria was conquered earlier than Morocco, and it was governed by a French governor and implemented a provincial system in mainland France. France even considers Algeria part of its homeland, with immigrants approaching 10% of the total Algerian population.
French colonial system in Africa
France exercised indirect rule in Morocco. The Alawite monarchy was preserved and Morocco's original state structure largely preserved, but Moroccan officials had to pledge allegiance to France. France's move is also taking into account the actual situation in Morocco and proceeding from the reality of reducing the cost of governance.
The international border between Algeria and Morocco became the internal boundary of the French colony, and France had the final say on the delimitation of the border.
In 1912, the French High Commissioner in Oudaj (a city in northeastern Morocco) proposed a new Moa delimitation plan, in which about 200 square kilometers of Moroccan territory was transferred to Algeria, and Morocco, which had lost its sovereignty, had to accept the Vargne Line, but the vast desert area in the south remained undemarcated.
After the annexation of Morocco, in order to win over Spain diplomatically, so that France could put aside its worries about its southern borders and concentrate on guarding Germany in the northeast of its own country. France was generous enough to transfer northern and southern Morocco to Spain, where Spain established Spanish Morocco.
Spanish Morocco
Moroccans did not give up their right to freedom, and in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century, the Rif Uprising and the Berber nationalist movement broke out in Spanish Morocco and French Morocco, and the Rif Reef Rebels even established their own country, and the Francis and Spain were forced to form a coalition and put down the uprising after paying huge casualties.
In 1934, French Colonel Tringhe led his army into the eastern Moroccan city of Tindouf and forcibly transferred the site to Algeria. According to the needs of its colonial rule, France has repeatedly fine-tuned the borders of Moa. This irresponsible behavior has laid the seeds for future border disputes between the two countries, both claiming that their demands have a "historical basis."
Each has its own basis
Until the outbreak of World War II, Morocco was an important part of the French African colony, providing France with minerals, labor, and soldiers.
After the outbreak of World War II, France was quickly defeated by the German blitzkrieg. De Gaulle and other officers went into exile in England, and they formed "Free France" to continue to resist the German army, which won the support of garrisons in colonies such as French Equatorial Africa.
French colonies, including Morocco and Algeria, remained loyal to Vichy France, a German-backed puppet regime, until the Allied occupation in 1943. World War II greatly weakened France's national power, coinciding with the wave of colonial independence after the war, and France was no longer able to maintain a large colonial empire.
Two French
Sand War
In an effort to suppress Morocco's wave of independence, France deposed and exiled King Mohammed V of Morocco, who supported independence, in 1953.
Instead of intimidating Moroccans, the French provoked anger among the Moroccans, who were forced to allow Mohammed V to return in 1955 amid a wave of protests and negotiations on Moroccan independence.
In 1956, France declared the Treaty of Fez null and void, and Morocco regained its national sovereignty and regained its independence.
Mohammed V
Morocco has a dual constitutional monarchy, and unlike the British fictitious monarch, the Moroccan sultan still holds the power to appoint a prime minister, government and military officials, similar to the Japanese emperor before World War II.
Only a few months after independence, Moroccan national radical forces suddenly rose to demand the restoration of Morocco's "historical territory". In September 1956, the Moroccan newspaper The Banner published on its front page a map of "Greater Morocco" drawn by Aberdel Kipier Fahi, a member of the Independence Party, accompanied by a "commentary" on the importance of Western Sahara's mineral resources.
In early 1958, under pressure from radical factions such as the Independence Party, the King of Morocco adopted a proposal for territorial claims against Mauritania. After Mauritania's independence from France in 1960, Morocco never recognized its independence.
Greater Morocco (red line range)
In the past few years when Morocco has been calculating the territory of its neighbors, Algeria is at war with France. With a population and economy larger than Morocco and more than 1 million descendants of French immigrants living in Algeria, Blackfoot, France, which sees Algeria as part of its homeland, refuses to give up as easily as Morocco.
The Algerian War of Independence lasted from 1954 to 1962, and France, which had to pay 90,000 French casualties, had to recognize Algerian independence.
Algerian War
As in 1830, when France invaded Algeria, Morocco supported the Algerian independence movement in the hope that its fellow Muslims would be freed from French rule.
Of course, Moroccan support is not free. Algerian independents agreed to establish a joint border committee to resolve the border with Morocco "in the spirit of Maghreb friendship" after independence.
On July 4, 1962, the day after Algeria declared its independence, Morocco crossed the "Vargne Line" drawn by the French and occupied the Bechar area in Algeria, demanding the allegiance of local tribal chiefs to Morocco, thus opening the curtain on the territorial dispute between Morocco and Algeria.
Beshar
The dispute focused on the demarcation and territorial ownership of most of the area south of the Tenezssi Hills.
Morocco considers that the tens of thousands of square kilometres of territory surrounding it, including Tindouf, originally belonging to the Moroccan side, was illegally and should not be recognized by France during the colonial period by privately annexing it to French Algeria.
Now that both Moa countries had gained independence, Morocco had helped its Muslim compatriots in the Algerian War of Independence, and Algeria should return those territories.
Constantly adjusting boundaries
Algeria, on the other hand, argues that the above-mentioned territories have been brought under its jurisdiction and that deposits of silver, iron, manganese and other minerals of good reserves and grade have been found there, which cannot in any way be handed over to Morocco.
In addition to different historical perceptions, the pursuit of mineral deposits, and Morocco's ambition to restore "historical territory", Algeria's ideology also determines that the two countries will not be able to live in harmony.
Algeria saw itself as a fighter against colonialism, while the Moroccan monarchy was seen by Algerians as a representative of backward feudalism.
In September 1963, war broke out between the two countries, whose differences could not be bridged. The Moroccan army, with the cooperation of fighters and tanks, penetrated deep into Algerian territory in an attempt to retake Tindouf and Bechar, and Algeria also sent armored troops to counterattack. Since most of the conflict areas are located in desert areas, the war is also known as the "Battle of the Sand".
The intensification of the conflict on the border between Algeria and Morocco has not only made newly independent African countries nervous, but also uneasy for Arab countries. In October of that year, Tunisia, also a Maghreb country, tried to mediate the conflict between the two countries, but failed.
Since then, the League of Arab States, the African countries represented by Mali and Ethiopia, and the newly established Alliance of African States have successively mediated between the two countries.
By February 1964, the four-month-long war had ended, with a combined casualty of less than 500 casualties and a low level of conflict.
Knowing that it could not defeat the behemoth of Algeria, Morocco temporarily abandoned its attempts to seize areas such as Tindouf and Bechar, and the two countries returned to their pre-war status.
King of Atlas
The war ended but the dispute between the two countries remained unresolved, with more than 80 percent of their 1,500-kilometer border undemarcated. In addition to the endless desert, these areas are scattered with small oasis towns and nomadic tribal settlements.
After the end of the war with Afghanistan, Morocco recognized Mauritania, which it had previously refused to recognize, in 1969, and the two countries successfully established diplomatic relations. The temporary abandonment of Tindouf and recognition of Mauritania does not mean that Morocco has given up its pursuit of "historical territory".
The ownership of Western Sahara was also a matter of great concern to Morocco, whose rule in Western Sahara had been unanimously opposed by Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania for different political purposes.
Unlike Algeria, which supported the independence of the local Saharans and thus gained regional influence, Moroccans were more concerned with the land of Western Sahara.
In October 1975, the 82-year-old Spanish ruler Franco fell into a coma, and Morocco expected that Spain would not be able to take care of Western Sahara at this time, so it organized 350,000 people to launch a "green march" to Western Sahara under the protection of 30,000 soldiers, and Mauritania also launched an infiltration of Western Sahara in the south.
At this time, the total population of Western Sahara was only 70,000 (and 10,000 European immigrants), and in the face of Moroccan immigration, Spain was forced to sign the Madrid Agreement with Morocco and Mauritania, agreeing to cede all of Western Sahara (260,000 square kilometers) to the two countries, with Moramao accounting for 65% and 35%.
Partition of Western Sahara
The Madrid Agreement did not take into account the wishes of the local population of Western Sahara, and the Front for the Liberation of Western Sahara (PFLF), established in 1973, had been working to establish an independent State and had waged a guerrilla war against the Momo army.
Weak Mauritania withdrew from Western Sahara, and Morocco took advantage of the situation to swallow 75 per cent of Western Sahara's territory, with the rest controlled by PFLP.
Morocco occupies the most valuable zone
Algeria, believing that the annexation of Western Sahara by Morocco would further increase its threat to western Algerian territory, had given strong support to PFLF, which had its headquarters in Algeria. Morocco was outraged, accusing Algeria of interfering in Morocco's internal affairs.
Algeria ignored it and in 1975 deported Moroccan nationals on a large scale and demonstrated to Morocco, bringing the two countries to a virtual severance.
Algeria had also subjected Morocco to enormous diplomatic pressure by continuing to file complaints within the African Union and other organizations, with Morocco forced to recognize the political status of the Western Sahara Front in 1987 and Algeria restoring full diplomatic relations with Morocco in 1988.
In the context of the Cold War, Algeria had close ties with the Soviet Union, while Morocco was closer to the United States, which intensified the confrontation between the two countries.
The Moah-State game over Western Sahara did not end with the end of the Cold War.
In 1994, the border between the two countries was closed after an attack in Marrakech, Morocco, which accused Algerian intelligence of orchestrating the attack.
Although the Algerian president took advantage of the death of the Moroccan king in 1999, the attacks between the two countries did not stop. Algeria accused Morocco of exporting drugs to the country, and Morocco demanded that it stop its support for the Western Sahara Front.
In the 21st century, Mohe relations have had several ups and downs. In 2020, Algeria discovered that Moroccan intelligence had hacked 6,000 mobile phones in the country, including many senior Albanian officials.
In 2021, Algeria severed diplomatic relations with Morocco on the grounds of "always being hostile to Algeria", and the Moroccan Foreign Ministry immediately responded strongly to the accusations of the Algerian side, which is just a microcosm of the half-century bond between the two countries.
As of 2021, Algeria's population and GDP size were 45 million and $168 billion, respectively, compared to Morocco's 37.5 million and $135 billion. Morocco lagged behind Algeria overall, but not by much.
Compared with the economy, Morocco has more martial virtue, with a total strength of more than 200,000 troops, which is comparable to Algeria, but has more experience in desert combat.
The border conflict between Morocco and Algeria began with French colonial rule, and to this day, the two close North African powers refuse to give in on territorial issues, with only 11% of the 1,500-kilometer border between the two countries demarcated.
Eagles soar on the top of the Atlas Mountains, the game continues, and the story of Morocco is still full of ups and downs. In the seemingly calm Maghreb region, the ambitions of the Atlas eagle never died.
END
Author | Biluo Qingyao
Source: Public account "Global Intelligence Officer" (WeChat ID: huanqiuqby)