Welcome readers to todays offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. We have an interesting story to tell of one of those international cities that gets invaded in World War II by a neutral.
The stamp today is kind of hard to figure out. Not Spain, despite saying Republica Espanola on it. Not even Spanish Morocco, even though it is from a part of present day Morocco that was at the time of the stamp occupied by Spain. Hard to imagine a country walking a very fine line to stay out of a world war going on all around them, yet still having the perhaps foolhardy guts to take by force an internationally mandated free city. But it did, and then issued this .05 ptas stamp.
In 1911, Morocco was divided up between Spain and France with France taking the central part and Spain taking the northern and southern parts. At this time the British had long held the Rock of Gibraltar as a colony at the gateway to the Mediterranean Sea. Near the northern tip of Morocco lay Tangier on the Atlantic Ocean. It was an important trading city with a majority of non Muslim residents including a large Jewish community. The League of Nations agreed to recognize Tangier as a free state that was to be jointly administered by France, Spain, and Great Britain. It became a hotbed of spies and literary types with the likes the deposed last sultan of Morocco, then exiled Italian leader Garbaldi. American writer Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, British writer George Orwell, and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger spending time there.
In 1940, Spain under the fascist leader Franco, was neutral in World War II, but took the opportunity to take military control of Tangier. They did this on the day after Paris fell to the Germans. Britain did notice and strongly protested but British in Tangier were not harassed and Franco promised not to fortify the city. My guess that if the war had continued to go so badly for the Allies Spain would have entered the war on the side of the Axis and used Tangier as a springboard to take Gibraltar from Britain, a long standing goal of Spain. Spain ended their occupation without a fight in late 1945. Tangier reverted to being an international city.
The special status of Tangier was not to last. When Spanish and French Morocco were united as the independent kingdom of Morocco, Tangier became part of Morocco. As such the international character of the place has faded and although moderate Muslim, Morocco has not kept the religious diversity of the city intact. The city now has 13 times the population it had at the end of the special status.
It is interesting to me that todays stamp from the period of Spanish occupation includes the Grand Mosque and the attached orphanage. I wonder if they were trying to make the point that the Muslims in the area were better off with Spain than Britain. The French part of Morocco was Vichy so a natural ally of Spain. The site of the Mosque had previously been a Catholic Cathedral built by the Portuguese and before that a Roman temple to the God Hercules.
Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open the conversation in the below comment section. Was Tangier better off as an international city or does being a part of Morocco better reflect the character of the place. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.