Lyautey, Louis Hubert Gonzalve

Lyautey, Louis Hubert Gonzalve (lwē übĕr` gôNzälv` lyōtā`), 1854–1934, colonial administrator and marshal of France. A career soldier, he served in Indochina, Madagascar, and Algeria before being sent (1912) to Morocco as French resident general after the establishment of a French protectorate. With a brief interruption in 1916–17, when he was French war minister, Lyautey devoted the next 13 years to administering the protectorate, developing the economy, extending the borders, and pacifying native resistance. His tactics of pacification involved much mediation and intrigue to divide tribal opposition, using traditional institutions to further colonial aims. He thus protected the traditional elites, who became agents of France's rule. During World War I, he maintained French rule over Morocco despite a depleted force. After the war he saw the campaign against the Berber mountain tribes under Abd el-Krim brought to a successful conclusion. Lyautey supported traditional forces in Morocco and focused his policy on the sultanate rather than on the French settlers.

Bibliography

See A. Maurois, Lyautey (tr. 1931); A. Scham, Lyautey in Morocco (1970).