THE MOORS AND BERBERS OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 191, 13 August 1931, Page 8

THE MOORS AND BERBERS OF THE ATLAS MOUNTAINS.

To-day’s Signed Article

Guerilla Warfare still Waged Against French Foreign Legion.

By Lady Drummond Hay

France’s twenty-year-old war against the fiercely freedomloving Moors and Berbers in the high Atlas Mountains of Southern Morocco, is slowly drawing to a close. The world has heard little of this war, if such it can be called, except in romantic novels of the Foreign Legion, like “ Beau Ceste.” Occasionally a few lines in Pans newspapers record an ambush of a detachment of Legionaries, or a skirmish with dissident tribesmen. As the Legionaries are chiefly foreign “ mercenaries,” no one is much interested in the casualties which since the end of the Riff War in Northern Morocco have not been great.

J AM writing this from the lower slopes of the High Atlas, below me, the vast, plain—green, flowered, fragrant and fertile from the winter rains. Soon the scorching summer sun will burn it brown and arid. Above me, majestic peaks crowned with eternal snows, glittering against the turquoise sky. A vivid rainbow delicately tints the mountains, gleaming spectrally in the opal phosphorescence of the dying day. Marakash, the “ Red City,” s moulders with ruby light in the s p 1 e n dour of the flaming west. Some 90,000 starry palms tra n sformed from green through gold to black silhouette, as lights from the Minora begin to gem the cloak of night. Heavy rains had caused landslides in Lad y Drummond Hay. the mountains, sweeping away sections of the road, barring the way to the southern edge of the Atlas. Peaceful Penetration. The French, since occupying Marakash in 1912, have characterised their campaign for the subjection of the Moors and Berbers in the Atlas as “ peaceful penetration.” Behind the p6int of that “ penetration,” more often than not, has been the Foreign Legion. The Legion has carried the French Tricolour in the Sahara to Lake Chad, to Timbuctoo, and farther south to the borders of British Nigeria. And now that Legion, the last and most romantically idealised military formation of soldiers of fortune left in the world, is making its “ last stand ” in the Grand Atlas Mountains. “ Last stand ” in the sense that it may be the last serious job of the Legion in Africa, unless there is, one day in the distant future, a re-awaken-ing of the Arab world. With no more fighting, only monotonous garrison duty, with the disappearance of adventure and romance—the great lures to the Foreign Legion—that unique organisation of soldiers of fortune who have carved out a vast Empire for France under the blazing sun of North Africa, may slowly disappear. Zones of Insecurity. Within another year, perhaps within a ® S g] g] ® ® Si Si EE) 13 S S) ® ® ® ® @1 SI @ ® ® ® 9

few months, the entire Grand Atlas in Southern Morocco, among the most picturesque mountains I have seen, will be safe for the tourist. On the southern slopes there are still “ zones of insecurity,” into which occasional raids are made by dissident tribesmen, and into which sections you may penetrate only with military permission. There are points beyond which motor-cars are not insured against being taken by raiders.

From Colomb Bechar, south-westward through the Atlas and foothills to the Atlantic near Agadir, stretches a chain of military posts chiefly garrisoned by the Foreign Legion. Like the Romans, the French have been great road-builders in North Africa, and deep into the Sahara. Steadily the military posts are advanced, the dissidents subjugated or pushed farther south. Except for a particularly difficult corner of \he Atlas Mountains south-west of Colomb Bechar, cleft by dark ravines and deep gulches, admirably adapted to ambush and guerilla waffare, and an occasional raid on the -southern slopes of Marakash, the Atlas are now free of those Moors and Berbers who still persist in refusing to acknowledge French rule in the guise of suzerainty of the Sultan of Morocco, who resides in Rabat. The Feudal Chiefs.

The High Atlas, towering up to 14,000 feet, are amongst the most scenic and romantic mountains, but as yet little visited by tourists. Chiefs of the important tribes live in feudal fashion in great fortress-like kashbahs, with high, thick walls, towers and ramparts. Some of them resemble European of the Middle Ages. Many villages are walled in as a protection against raiders and attack in inter-tribal wars before the French came. Life there is to-day just as it was hundreds of years ago. The emancipation of woman has not yet penetrated Southern Morocco. Caids, sheikhs, rich men, can still have all the wives the law r allows—that is four. But, in addition, many possess numerous concubines, who are little more than slaves. The high cost of wives has not yet penetrated the Atlas Mountains as a consequence of world economic depression. Good motor roads, built by the French, enable you now to motor right into the heart of the Atlas Mountains to Telouet, and through them south-west to ramparted Taroudant. A drive by the Foreign Legion, I was told, advanced the French military posts a considerable distance farther in the last few 7 days. It is .only a question of time now before civilisation, commanded in this instance by the French, will triumph in the plains south of the High Atlas.

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