Word: morocco
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...came in a welter of blood in Morocco and political chaos in Paris. The Berbers rebelled against El Glaoui and his stooge Sultan, went on a major uprising in the Atlas Mountains. The last straw for the French came when El Glaoui himself drove into Rabat in his black Bentley and blandly declared: "I identify myself with the wish of the Moroccan nation for a prompt restoration of Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef...
...Mohammed's face in the full moon. Imams refused to say prayers in Cousin Moulay Arafa's name. The French did their best to discredit Mohammed, releasing a flood of stories of alleged collaboration with the Nazis, and hustled him even farther away, to Madagascar. Back in Morocco, anger swelled, and terrorism began. Trains were derailed, warehouses fired, boycotts of French goods organized. It became virtually a death sentence for an Arab to be caught smoking a French cigarette...
...allegiance. So did scores of Moroccan chiefs and notables. Sycophant El Glaoui humbly prostrated himself before Mohammed, kissed his monarch's feet and begged forgiveness. Suddenly anxious to please. Foreign Minister Antoine Pinay agreed not only that Mohammed should return to the throne, but that France would help Morocco to "achieve the status of an independent state, united to France by the permanent ties of an interdependence freely accepted and defined." Pinay even agreed that the terms of "interdependence" could be negotiated later (they are still unsettled). Grumbled one unreconstructed colon: "The Sultan asked for a cup of water...
...Triumph. Mohammed returned to Morocco in triumph. All Morocco went on a week-long celebration. Berbers staged feasts in crenelated mud-walled casbahs. In the cities Arabs paraded with flags and portraits of the Sultan. In factories and mines, work stopped. In the hills, guerrillas calling themselves the National Liberation Army looted French plantations, murdered rich Moroccan farmers who had sided with the French. In the subsequent panic, thousands of Frenchmen packed up and fled to France, taking with them capital roughly equivalent to Morocco's whole annual budget...
Well aware that Morocco needs French capital, Mohammed V reacted with typically shrewd sense. He appointed 27-year-old Prince Moulay Hassan commander of the Royal Moroccan Army (trained and equipped by the French), and sent him out to disband the Liberation Army by swearing its men into the Sultan's own force. Steely-nerved Moulay Hassan had soon sworn in some 5,000 irregulars, sent the rest home except for some holdouts mostly in the deep south. The Sultan himself toured all Morocco, traveling in a huge caravan and camping in tents on the plains. Talking to crowds...