[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 agricultural life going,
and give to the famous “business as usual”
a really justifiable application.
General Lyautey completely succeeded, and the first
impression of all travellers arriving in Morocco two
years later was that of suddenly returning to a world
in normal conditions. There was even, so complete
was the illusion, a first moment of almost painful
surprise on entering an active prosperous community,
seemingly absorbed in immediate material interests
to the exclusion of all thought of the awful drama
that was being played out in the mother country, and
it was only on reflection that this absorption in
the day’s task, and this air of smiling faith
in the future, were seen to be Morocco’s truest
way of serving France.
For not only was France to be supplied with provisions,
but the confidence in her ultimate triumph was at
all costs to be kept up in the native mind. German
influence was as deep-seated as a cancer: to cut
it out required the most drastic of operations.
And that operation consisted precisely in letting
it be seen that France was strong and prosperous enough
for her colonies to thrive and expand without fear
while she held at bay on her own frontier the most
formidable foe the world has ever seen. Such
was the “policy of the smile,” consistently
advocated by General Lyautey from the beginning of
the war, and of which he and his household were the
first to set the example.
The General had said that he would not “break
the egg-shell”; but he knew that this was not
enough, and that he must make it appear unbreakable
if he were to retain the confidence of the natives.
