File No. 381.81F47/4.
From my acquaintance with Mr. Macleod, I feel that our Government is most
fortunate in this emergency in having the benefit of his years of
experience and familiarity with conditions in the interior of Morocco,
and of his very calm judgment of events there.
[Inclosures.]
The British Consul at
Fez to the American Minister at
Tangier.
[Summary of the two letters referred to.]
The British Consul, Mr. J. M. Macleod, writes on May 8, 1912, to Mr.
Fred W. Carpenter, the American Minister at Tangier, an account of
the participation of an American protégé in the fighting at Fez
between the French and the Moorish mutineers. This American protégé
is Sid El Hadj Mohammed Ben Lehsen El Filaly, who is the Semsar of
Mr. Joseph Cazes. During an attack on the Kasbah Filala he and some
twenty-five of his friends rescued five men of a French detachment,
in the course of which five of Filaly’s friends were killed. The
rescued French soldiers were taken by Filaly to the Kasbah Filala,
where he housed and fed them. Filaly then went to the French
Minister and reported the occurrence, and was warmly thanked by the
Minister for his services. The same evening Filaly and his friends
escorted the rescued soldiers to the quarter of the Consulates. At
the request of the French Chief Intelligence Officer, Commandant de
Lamothe, they also brought in the bodies of nine French soldiers,
for which the Commandant thanked them.
Filaly has also been most generous in supplying food, bedding, etc.,
for the distressed Jews.
The British Consul reports these incidents feeling sure it will
gratify the American Minister to learn of the brave and humane
conduct of the American protégé.
[Page 988]
In the second letter, dated May 13 and 14, Mr. Macleod adds the
following further particulars.
The French soldiers now say that, although it is true that they were
sheltered at the Kasbah Filala, it was not till later that the
American protégé, Filaly, assisted them; that at the beginning of
the fight they were fired upon by the mutineers, who had been
brought to the scene by the inhabitants of that very Kasbah
Filala.
The American protégé denied this statement. Later, on May 11, he sent
a message to the British Consul saying he had been arrested by the
French authorities. The Consul sent Filaly’s certificate of American
protection to the French Military Intelligence Bureau and a letter
to the effect that the Bureau was probably not aware of Filaly’s
being an American protégé.
The French officer in Charge replied that they could arrest and
interrogate whomsoever they pleased, and threw back to the messenger
the copy of the certificate.
However, Filaly later appeared at the British Consulate, to say that
he had been released.
But on May 12 Filaly’s servant came in great alarm to say that his
master was being thrashed by an officer at the French Bureau, and
while he was talking Filaly himself appeared, in a most terrified
state, saying that Lieutenant Arnaud of the Bureau had come to the
Kasbah Filala and, cursing him, beat him over the head with his
riding-whip.
The British Consul thereupon went with Filaly to M. Gaillard, the
French Consul, who, although deprecating the beating, declared that
Filaly was a French protégé. But M. Gaillard, after a visit to the
Bureau, called for the protection-list, struck off Filaly’s name and
sent him away. Filaly implored the British Consul to make sure that
he would not be in further danger; whereupon the Consul called on
the French Minister and related the whole affair, with special
emphasis on the lieutenant’s conduct, saying that the Minister
“would surely agree that curses and riding-whips were not mentioned
amongst the powers which General Moinier, when proclaiming a ‘state
of siege’ at Fez, had claimed the use of by the Military.” The
Minister promised to call General Moinier’s attention to the
lieutenant’s behavior.
After his return to the Consulate the French Vice Consul called to
explain and apologize, and it was agreed that El Filaly should
remain at the British Consulate, where he then was, until the
conclusion of the inquiry into El Filaly’s affiliations and his acts
during the attack on the Kasbah Filala. Later, Commandant de Lamothe
informed the Consul that if this inquiry should implicate Filaly and
a court martial should be ordered, an order would be issued for his
arrest and the Consul would be asked to give him up. To this the
Consul replied that, whatever the accusations against him, Filaly
was an American-protected person, triable only by an American
tribunal. Commandant de Lamothe answered “that as there was a state
of war, and as a state of siege had been proclaimed, even though
only on the 25th April—and the alleged offenses were committed on
the 18th April—the French Court Martial alone had jurisdiction.”
“I answered (writes Mr. Macleod) that no foreign consul here had
recognized such a right, and that even were such right established
it would be beyond my competence to surrender any British subject or
protégé without instructions from my superiors to that effect, and
still more to surrender, of my own discretion, a foreign—in this case an American—protégé, American
interests being, for the time, in my charge.”
Commandant de Lamothe replied that he did not anticipate any steps to
arrest Filaly while in the British Consulate, which he understood
was regarded as British soil, and added his warm acknowledgment of
the courtesy Mr. Macleod had always shown the French
authorities.
On May 14 Mr. Macleod called upon the French Minister, who said that
the inquiry would show the Court Martial to have jurisdiction, but
that he quite saw how the Consul could not surrender the accused
without direction to that effect from the American Minister.
The letter ends as follows:
“I would beg, in conclusion, to point out how very serious the
accusations are. Should a trial be ordered and the accused fail to
clear himself he would be liable to be sentenced to death, and,
obviously, recent events at Fez have not been of a nature to render
a dispassionate trial by French Court Martial easy to carry out.
“Personally—from many years’ acquaintance with him—and from what I
have always heard of him from others, it would take much more and
weightier
[Page 989]
evidence that I
have yet heard to convince me that Hadj Mohammed Lehsen was capable
of such odious conduct as the Tirailleurs have imputed to him.
“You will have observed of course that the offences alleged were
committed on Wednesday 18 April, about dawn, that since noon on the
17th the Consulates quarter had been isolated and was in a state of
self-defence, owing to the outbreak of the revolt, and consequently
there had been no opportunity to communicate any advice to protégés
as to the attitude they should observe. My advice to our British
people and others applying to me, was, as soon as I could send it,
(and is still) to observe the most rigid neutrality, leaving the
French and French authorities and the rebels to fight out their
quarrel by themselves. Otherwise, whenever French or Moorish
soldiers or the like, were at fault, they would be apt to seek to
clear themselves by blaming somebody else. This advice, of course,
was not to preclude their sheltering any foreigners—noncombatants or
combatants—or Jews in distress, but only referred to the operations
of the French and Moorish Authorities.
