Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez (Nov 2024)
Cristóbal Benítez, as de espías: La inteligencia española en el sur de Marruecos a finales del siglo xix
Abstract
This article offers an examination of the intelligence activities carried out between 1884 and 1889 from the Spanish consular representation in Essaouira (Mogador), aimed at halting the advance of the French Third Republic in southern Morocco. The correspondence of the consular agents with the Ministry of State, which is now kept in the General Administration Archive in Alcalá de Henares (AGA, Madrid), shows how, in this historical context, Mogador became an observatory from which Spain was able to investigate Republican pretensions in the Souss. Analysis of the content of the dispatches allows us to understand the mechanism that the Essaouira consulate, with the approval of the Restoration government, set up to carry out intelligence operations, from the collection of unpublished data, its processing and the dispatch of information to Madrid, and the structuring of a counter-espionage service, led by the explorer Cristóbal Benítez and an indigenous agent, El Morabet, who had to confront an uprising in the Souss territory, led by the head of the commercial house of Iligh, Muley Mohammed ben Hussein, which had the backing of France. In so doing, the French government sought to segregate an important part of the Sultanate’s territory to make it a protectorate of the Republic. The central idea of the Spanish strategy, full of political realism, was to protect national security. Spanish intervention in support of Moroccan integrity, although it did not play a decisive role, contributed greatly to the failure of the insurrection in the Souss, even if this failure was largely due to factors that were fundamentally internal to the Sultanate. With the French plans frustrated, the Third Republic directed its actions in Morocco towards reaching an agreement with the Restoration monarchy, offering it a proposal for the division of the Sultanate.
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