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| Bombardment of Casablanca | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theFrench conquest of Morocco | |||||||
 The French cruiserGloire bombardingCasablanca, August 1907 printed on a postcard. | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 France |  Morocco | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Antoine DrudeJoseph Philibert | Abd al-Aziz al-AlawiAbu Bakr bin Bouzid | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1,500 to 7,000 civilian deaths | |||||||
TheBombardment of Casablanca (Arabic:قصف الدار البيضاء;French:Le bombardement de Casablanca) was a French naval attack that took place from 5 to 7 August 1907, destroying theMoroccan city ofCasablanca.[1]France used mainly artillery fire fromarmored cruisers to bomb the city and targets in the surrounding area, which caused an estimated 1,500 to 7,000 Moroccan deaths.[1] The bombardment of Casablanca opened a western front to theFrench conquest of Morocco afterHubert Lyautey's occupation ofOujda in the east earlier that year.
The bombardment came after an attack of tribesmen of theShawiya opposed to the terms of theTreaty of Algeciras of 1906 to the French presence in thecustoms house and to the construction of a railroad over asanctuary, specifically on European employees of theCompagnie Marocaine operating aDecauville train from a quarry inRoches Noires to thePort of Casablanca on 30 July 1907.[2] When theFrench cruiserGalilée disembarked alanding party of 75 soldiers on 5 August, an insurrection broke out in the city.[2]
TheGalilée and theDu Chayla bombarded the city withmélinite, an explosive substance containingpicric acid that struck residential neighborhouods, particularly theTnaker.[1][3][4]
After capturingOujda, French forces turned their sights toCasablanca, the domain of the tribes of theChaouia that were known for producing soldiers.
Five years before theFrench protectorate, Casablanca had been occupied, but the battles continued. Dozens of battles took place within the city, in the periphery and finally deeper into the Chaouia.
In 1907, the issue of French agents controlling customs duties and the start of intense, alienating and clearly-colonial construction came to a head.
On 29 July a delegation of Chaouia tribes presented itself to Moulay Lamine, the governor of the province and uncle of Morocco's young sultan,Abdelaziz El-Alawi, with the desire to demolish the works under way. Another delegation met with the city's pasha,Si Boubker Ben Bouzid Slaoui to protest and demand an end to the construction on the port, the destruction of the railroad and the removal of the French supervisors at the customs house. On 30 July the turmoil in the city increased. In the morning, a public crier sent by the Oulad Hriz tribe called the population to end all relations with the French.
Hajj Hammou [ar;fr], theqa'id of the Oulad Hriz tribe, called forjihad and prepared for battle with the French and the Spanish and their associates. People of the Chaouia took to the streets and violence broke out that afternoon, which led to the death of nine European labourers working for theCompagnie Marocaine, the French company that was chosen to build the port. The protesters stopped the train, the tracks of which ran over the Sidi Belyout necropolis on the way to a quarry up the shore with a pile of rocks on the track, and attacked the European workers aboard: four French, three Italian and two Spanish.[6]
After the insurrection of 30 July 1907, thousands of warriors from the Chaouia, apparently allied withMa al-'Aynayn, took Casablanca. France was surprised because of poor intelligence and urgently sent for a fleet, which left fromAlgeria. Saint Aulaire, the diplomat in charge of the French Legation inTangier, acted under instruction fromParis and called a number of warships to Casablanca, including theLinois-class cruiserGalilée, which was dispatched from Tangier that very night and arrived on 1 August, and the cruiserDu Chayla, which arrived on 4 August fromToulon. The morning of 5 August. 66 men disembarked fromGalilée to protect the French consulate, a move that was criticised by other European powers present in Casablanca, as it aggravated the situation in the city.[7] Foreign warships arrived on the scene, including the British cruiserHMS Antrim[8] and the Spanish gunboatÁlvaro de Bazán, which landed 30 men to protect the Spanish consulate.[8]
The French protected cruiserForbin arrived from theAzores. In the late afternoon, once French forces had occupied the French, Swedish and Portuguese consulates in Casablanca by entering through the Portuguese consulate,Galilée commenced bombardment. On 7 August a French squadron arrived from Algeria:Gloire,Gueydon,Dupetit-Thouars, andCondé. It was soon joined byJeanne d'Arc,Nive, and the hospital shipShamrock, transporting terrestrial forces.
Galilée andGloire bombarded theqasbah causing numerous casualties: "rebels" and civilians alike. The working-class neighborhood Tnaker (تناكر), near the port, paid the heftiest price by taking shrapnel from shells filled withmélinite, anitric compound that was adopted by the French government.[4] Houses of worship, including the great mosque and the sanctuary of theMausoleum of Allal al-Qairawani, were not spared.
The gates to the medina were especially targeted to prevent the entrance of Chaoui combatants.
The bombardment continued through the night and into the morning of 6 August, with 31 soldiers disembarking fromDu Chayla and 44 fromForbin. The Moroccans, despite the considerable losses suffered from the incessant bombardment, continued to fight, which inspired unease within the French troops. The squadron of Rear-AdmiralJoseph-Alphonse Philibert brought GeneralAntoine Drude's troops, including French andAlgeriantirailleurs, to shore at the beach of Sidi Belyout, where they were met with Moroccan fire.
On 7 August the disembarked troops of General Drude and the marine riflemen of Philibert, after fierce combat, retook control of the city.[9] According to eyewitnesses and diplomatic sources, a "revolution" seemed to have started in Morocco. Some had the premonition that was only the beginning of a long war between the French and the Moroccans.
Over three days of bombs raining down from the French warships, followed by carnage and pillaging from troops on the ground, what had been a prosperous city of 30,000 inhabitants was transformed into a field of rubble with nothing spared except for the European neighbourhood.
French sources put the death toll at a conservative 600 to 1,500, but German sources estimate 2,000 to 3,000. Moroccan sources, supported by European testimonies, attest that only a few rare inhabitants of the city survived after the carnage.
On 6 September the commercial shipMagnus[10] brought the 400 Jews who had fled at the beginning of the insurrection back to Casablanca from Tangier and Gibraltar.
![The qasbah destroyed by artillery shells[12]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aB_8_001.jpg)
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