The "New Order" in a Pre-Colonial Muslim Society: Military Reform in Morocco, 1844-1904. (Volumes I and II).

In 1845 the Moroccan government embarked on the creation of new military forces modeled on those of Western Europe. It thus sought to overcome the inadequacies of its traditional regular forces in the face of recurrent internal opposition and increased exposure to external attack. For the same reasons governments elsewhere in Southwest Asia and North Africa had created similar forces during the preceding decades. The few studies of these efforts which have been done focus on the Ottoman, Egyptian and Tunisian examples and are conceptually structured, at least implicitly, by "modernization" theory. Hence, they stress the role of the new military order in the transmission of European culture and technology and in the formation of "Europeanized" elites. Heavy emphasis is placed on the cultural determinants of the new military order's progress. Much less attention is given to its internal context, to the nature and evolution of opposition to it, and to the role of European intervention in frustrating its progress. Consequently, these studies ignore factors which decisively influenced the process of military innovation and obscure the scope of its significance. Based on archival sources in Morocco, Great Britain and France, this study shows how the new military order in Morocco was primarily significant in ways other than as a channel of cultural transmission from Europe. As might be expected, it greatly increased the power of the central government to impose its control. However, it simultaneously undermined its ideological authority and increased its political isolation, thereby deepening the conflict between government and subjects and preventing coherent resistance to external threat. This study also shows how the new military order's development was defined by its international context. European intervention disrupted its development, undermined its legitimacy and obstructed the transmission of European cultural forms by associating them with submission to European cultural and political domination. Finally, it is demonstrated that many of the conclusions reached in this study of Morocco can be extended to the establishment of new military forces elsewhere in North Africa and Southwest Asia during the nineteenth century.Ph.D.African historyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159635/1/8324273.pd