ESPAÑA Y LA APERTURA DE LA CUESTION MARROQUI (1895-1912)

Abstract

In 1898 the Restoration regime had to face up to a complicated web of problems about the Moroccan question: the French imperialist pressure seen in Tuat and the Rif forced the Sagasta cabinet to attempt to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom. From 1900 the Silvela government undertook a diplomatic offensive attempting to take advantage of the Sultanate’s weakness to wrench the vast territories of Tarfaya and Sakia al- Hamra from it. The failure of this attempt would lead Sagasta’s liberal cabinet during the two years 1901-1902 to getting a Spanish-French negotiating process under way in which the distribution of Morocco was discussed. After this agreement came to nothing, from 1903 the Spanish governments began a process of simultaneous rapprochement with the United Kingdom and France, in the new setting in which London and Paris settled their nineteenth century colonial differences. An enclave in the distribution of Morocco would fi nally be obtained as a result of this rapprochement.