Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey (17 November 1854 – 27 July 1934) was a French Army general and colonial administrator. After serving in Indochina and Madagascar, he was appointed the first French Resident-General in Morocco from 1912 to 1925. In this capacity, he oversaw modernisation works in the newly-established protectorate, including in agriculture, infrastructure, urbanism, and medicine. In early 1917, he concurrently briefly served as Minister of War amid World War I. In 1921, he was made a Marshal of France.Teyssier, Arnaud. Lyautey: le ciel et les sables sont grands. Paris: Perrin, 2004.
Lyautey was dubbed the "French empire builder" and in 1931 made the cover of Time. He was also the first one to use the term "hearts and minds" as part of his strategy to counter the Black Flags rebellion during the Tonkin campaign in 1885.Douglas Porch, "Bugeaud, Gallieni, Lyautey: The Development of French Colonial Warfare", in Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Peter Paret, ed. Princeton University Press, USA, 1986. p. 394. In 1912 he was elected to the Académie Française.
Early life Lyautey was born in Nancy, the capital of Lorraine. His father was a prosperous engineer and his grandfather a highly decorated Napoleonic general. His mother was a Norman aristocrat, and Lyautey inherited many of her assumptions: monarchism, patriotism, Catholicism and the belief in the moral and political importance of the elite.Aldrich 1996, p134 He attended lycée in Dijon, where he recalled he was fascinated with René Descartes' Discours de la Methode.
In 1873, he entered the French military academy of Saint-Cyr. He attended the army training school in early 1876 and in December 1877 was made a lieutenant. After graduating from Saint-Cyr, two months of holiday in Algeria in 1878 left him impressed by the Maghreb and by Islam. He served in the cavalryClayton 2003, p216-7 and was to make his career serving in the colonies, not in a more prestigious assignment in metropolitan France. In 1880, he was posted to Algiers and then campaigned in southern Algeria. In 1884, to his disappointment, he was recalled to France.Aldrich 1996, p135
Military career Indochina In 1894, he was posted to Indochina, serving under Joseph Gallieni. He helped crush the so-called piracy of the Black Flags rebellion along the Chinese border. He then set up the colonial administration in Tonkin and then became head of the military office of the Government-General in Indochina. When he left Indochina in 1897, he was a lieutenant colonel and had received the Legion of Honour.Aldrich 1996, p63, 135
In Indochina, he wrote:
Madagascar From 1897 to 1902, Lyautey served in Madagascar, again under Gallieni. He pacified northern and western Madagascar; administered a region of 200,000 inhabitants; began the construction of a new provincial capital at Ankazobe and a new roadway across the island; He encouraged the cultivation of rice, coffee, tobacco, grain, and cotton; and opened schools. In 1900 he became Governor of Southern Madagascar, an area a third the size of France with a million inhabitants; 80 officers and 4,000 soldiers served under him. He was also promoted to colonel in 1900. In Madagascar. he wrote to his father: He believed that he did not crave power for its own sake. He returned to France to command a cavalry regiment in 1902 before he was promoted to brigade general a year later, largely a result of the military skill and success which he had shown in Madagascar.
Morocco
In 1903, he was posted to command first a subdivision south of Oran and then the whole Oran district, his official task being to protect a new railway line against attacks from Morocco.Aldrich 1996, p136 French commanders in Algeria moved into Morocco largely on their own initiative in early 1903. Later that year, Lyautey marched west and occupied Béchar, a clear breach of the 1840s treaties. The following year, he advanced further into Morocco in clear disobedience of the Minister of War and threatened to resign if he were not supported by Paris. The French Foreign Minister issued a vague disavowal of Lyautey because he was concerned at clashing with British influence in Morocco.This was a few years after the Fashoda Incident, and the Entente Cordiale had not yet existed. In the event, Britain, Spain and Italy were placated by France agreeing to allow them a free hand in Egypt, northern Morocco, and Libya respectively, and the only objections to French expansion in the region came from Germany (see First Moroccan Crisis).Aldrich 1996, p32-3
Lyautey met Isabelle Eberhardt in 1903 and employed her for intelligence missions. After her death in 1904, he chose her tombstone.Aldrich 1996, p158
In early 1907 Émile Mauchamp, a French doctor, was killed in Marrakesh, possibly as he was attempting to lay the groundwork for French expansion. Lyautey then occupied Oujda in eastern Morocco near the Algerian border.Aldrich 1996, p34-5 Having been promoted to division general, Lyautey was the military governor of French Morocco from 4 August 1907. After taking Oudja, he went to Rabat to put pressure on the Sultan and got embroiled in a power struggle between the Sultan and his brother, with Germany and France taking sides in the dispute.
On 14 October 1909 in Paris, Lyautey married Inès Fortoul, née de Bourgoing, goddaughter of former Empress Eugénie and president of the French Red Cross, who had just organized the Red Cross in Morocco. The marriage was childless. He returned to France in 1910, and in January 1911, he took up command of a corps at Rennes.
In 1912 Lyautey was posted back to Morocco and relieved Fez, which was being besieged by 20,000 Moroccans. After the Convention of Fez established a protectorate over Morocco, Lyautey served as Resident-General of French Morocco from 28 April 1912 to 25 August 1925. Sultan Moulay Hafid abdicated at the end of 1912, replaced by his more pliable brother, although the country was not fully pacified until 1934.Aldrich 1996, p35
On 31 October 1912, he was elected at the seat 14 of the Académie Française.
First World War On 27 July 1914, Resident-General Lyautey received a cable from Paris from the undersecretary of foreign affairs Abel Ferry. He was quoted as telling his officers: However, like many professional soldiers, he disliked the Third Republic and in some ways welcomed the outbreak of war "because the politicians have shut up".Herwig 2009, p28 The same day, War Minister Messimy told Lyautey to prepare to abandon Morocco except for the major cities and ports and to send all seasoned troops to France. Messimy later said that had been a "formal" order.Doughty 2005, p50
At the outbreak of the war, Lyautey commandied 70,000 troops, all members of the Armée d'Afrique or part of La Coloniale. Under French law, metropolitan conscripts could not serve except under very exceptional circumstances abroad. Initially, he sent two Algerian-Tunisian divisions to the western front, then another two, plus two brigades of Algerians serving in Morocco, and a brigade of 5,000 Moroccans. Over 70 battalions of Algerians and Tunisians served on the Western Front, and one Moroccan and seven Algerian regiments of Spahis (cavalry) served dismounted on the Western Front. Others fought in Macedonia or mounted in the Levant.Clayton 2003, p175
In 1914, 33 officers, 580 soldiers and the weapons of two battalions were lost in an expedition near Khenifra. Although that was to prove the only incident in Morocco during the war, Lyautey was worried about the threat of jihad as a result of German propaganda in Morocco, and many of the remaining legionnaires were German. Four territorial regiments were sent from southern France and served alongside the mobilised European colonists.Greenhalgh 2014, pp119-20 By mid-1915 Lyautey had sent 42 battalions to the Western Front, receiving in return middle-aged reservists (who to his delight were regarded as seasoned warriors by the Moroccans), battalions of Tirailleurs sénégalais and Tirailleurs marocains, as well as irregular Moroccan goumiers. With 200,000 men, Lyautey had to hold down the Middle Atlas and the Rif and to suppress rebellions by Zaians at Khenifra, Abd al Malik at the Taza, and al Hiba in the south, the latter aided by German U-boats. Lyautey argued that Verdun and Morocco were part of the same war.Clayton 2003, p181-2
Lyautey disregarded advice to concentrate major forces in a few cities and took a personal risk by spreading them all over the country. In the end, his gamble turned right as he got a psychological edge over potentially mutinous tribal chiefs. Lyautey had 71,000 men by July 1915. He insisted France would win the war and continued with the usual trade fairs and road and rail construction.
Political career Colonial policies His personal beliefs evolved from monarchism and conservatism to a belief in social duty. He wrote a journal article "On the Social Function of the Officer under Universal Military Service". However, his colonial policies were similar in practice to those of Gallieni, a secular republican. He was suspicious of republicanism and socialism, and believed in the social role of the Army in regenerating France.
Lyautey adopted and emulated Gallieni's policy of methodical expansion of pacified areas followed by social and economical development (markets, schools and medical centres) to bring about the end of resistance and the cooperation of former insurgents. This method became known as tache d'huile (literally "oil stain"), as it resembles oil spots spreading to cover the whole surface. Lyautey's writings have had a significant influence on contemporary counterinsurgency theory through its adoption by David Galula. He also practiced a policy known as politique des races of dealing separately with each tribe to avoid any tribe from gaining too much influence within the colonial system.Aldrich 1996, p106
Lyautey is considered to have been an apt colonial administrator. His governing style evolved into the Lyautey system of colonial rule. The Lyautey system invested in pre-established local governing bodies and advocated for local control. He advocated for finding a sub-group that had nationalistic tendencies but had a strong desire for local autonomy and then investing in the sub-group as political leaders. He tried to balance blunt military force with other means of power and promoted a vision of a better future for the Moroccans under the French colonial administration. For example, he invited a talented young French urban planner, Henri Prost, to design comprehensive plans for redevelopment of the major Moroccan cities.Cohen, Jean-Louis. Henri Prost and Casablanca: the art of making successful cities (1912–1940). The New City, (fall 1996), № 3, p. 106-121.Wright, Gwendolyn. Tradition in the service of modernity: architecture and urbanism in French colonial policy, 1900–1930. The Journal of Modern History, 59, № 2 (1987): 291–316.
In Morocco from 1912, he was publicly deferential to the sultan and told his men not to treat the Moroccans as a conquered people. He opposed proselytising of Christianity and the settlement of French migrants in Morocco,Aldrich 1996, p136-7 and quoted with approval Governor Lanessan of Indo-China "we must govern with the mandarin and not against the mandarin".
Minister of War