THE FIRST MOROCCAN CRISIS: A SMALL STATE AMONG GREAT FIRES

Abstract

The conflict-filled struggle of the most powerful forces of world politics of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to establish informal control over the Sultanate of Morocco during the corresponding crisis of 1905, which was destined to become the first peculiar apogee of the great geopolitical confrontation of states around the «North African apple of discord», is examined in detail. The background history of events is investigated simultaneously in two dimensions, closely connected with each other by multifaceted cause-and-effect relationships. First, from the point of view of a relatively local confrontation, concentrated in the administrative boundaries of the Moroccan Sultanate and the conditional political-geographical boundaries of the North African subregion and caused by deep economic and political contradictions that reached their apogee at the time of the world's entry into the new, industrial era. Secondly, a smooth transition is made from a local-regional interpretation of the origins of the Moroccan crisis to a more «global» understanding of it. The analysis is carried out as if in a two-dimensional coordinate system: along the «France-Germany» axis and the «Entente - Triple Alliance» axis. The inseparable interdependence of the mentioned factors and the inappropriateness of excessive concentration on a certain «level» of the development of the crisis situation around Morocco are postulated. Due attention is paid to the structuring of the events of the First Moroccan crisis by highlighting and organizing its internal phases; the consequences of the Alchiceras Conference for all parties to the conflict are assessed. Emphasis is also placed on the polarization of the system of international relations on the eve of the First World War.