wise one, but it was hampered by the
fact that these powerful leaders, however loyal to the Protectorate,
knew no methods of administration but those based on extortion. It was
necessary at once to use them and to educate them; and one of General
Lyautey's greatest achievements has been the successful employment of
native ability in the government of the country.

II

The first thing to do was to create a strong frontier against the
dissident tribes of the Blad-es-Siba. To do this it was necessary that
the French should hold the natural defenses of the country, the
foothills of the Little and of the Great Atlas, and the valley of the
Moulouya, which forms the corridor between western Algeria and Morocco.
This was nearly accomplished in 1914 when war broke out.

At that moment the home government cabled the Resident-General to send
all his available troops to France, abandoning the whole of conquered
territory except the coast towns. To do so would have been to give
France's richest colonies[A] outright to Germany at a moment when what
they could supply--meat and wheat--was exactly what the enemy most
needed.

[Footnote A: The loss of Morocco would inevitably have been followed by
that of the whole of French North Africa.]

General Lyautey took forty-eight hours to consider. He then decided to
"empty the egg without breaking the shell", and the reply he sent was
that of a great patriot and a great general. In effect he said: "I will
give you all the troops you ask, but instead of abandoning the interior
of the country I will hold what we have already taken, and fortify and
enlarge our boundaries." No other military document has so nearly that
ring as Marshal Foch's immortal Marne despatch (written only a few weeks
later): "My centre is broken, my right wing is wavering, the situation
is favorable and I am about to attack."

General Lyautey had framed his answer in a moment of patriotic
exaltation, when the soul of every Frenchman was strung up to a
superhuman pitch. But the pledge once made, it had to be carried out,
and even those who most applauded his decision wondered how he would
meet the almost insuperable difficulties it involved. Morocco, when he
was called there, was already honeycombed by German trading interests
and secret political intrigue, and the fruit seemed ready to fall when
the declaration of war shook the bough. The only way to save the colony
for France was to keep its industrial and agric