By the Treaty of fez, signed March 30, 1912, sultan Abdelhafid gave up the sovereignty of Morocco to the French, making the country a protectorate. By the same treaty, Spain assumed a protectorate over Tangiers and the Spanish Sahara on the Atlantic coast in the southwest.

Private agreements among the United Kingdom, Italy and France arived at in 1904, without consulting the sultan, had divided the maghreb into spheres of influence, with France given Morocco as its responsibility. In Morocco, the young sultan Abdelaziz acceded in 1894 at the age of ten, and Europeans became the main advisors at the court, while local rulers became more and more independent from the sultan. The sultan was deposed in 1908, and the situation of Moroccan law and order continued to deteriorate under his successor, Abdelhafid.