In the construction of the collective remembrance of any war, literary, journalistic, and soldier' chronicles have become very significant and this evidence has been clearly exposed in recent researches on cultural warfare studies. From this statement, the purpose of this chapter is to examine an individual testimony to increase our understanding of the complex Spanish-Moroccan War (1859-1860). Rather than delving into its military dynamics, the main goal of this contribution will consist of providing a profound comprehension of this struggle, its extensive international implications and legacy thanks to a detailed analysis of The Spanish Campaign in Morocco. This is an interesting compilation of the previous reports written by Frederick Hardman, an unknown (at least among Spaniards) foreign correspondent whose words can be extremely enlightening insofar as it will be applied the analytic tool of ̶ British ̶ informal imperialism as basis for the study of the multidimensional Spanish-Moroccan relationships.
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The War of Africa has received considerable historiographical attention in Spain and Morocco (Zarouk, 2007). As the United Kingdom was also a major player in the conflict (although its priority at the time was to dominate the Chinese market), British academics have also undertaken its study, albeit to a lesser extent. The questions raised by both sides have been many, feeding fruitful and, above all, challenging debates. It is also very appealing to see how this shared history changes depending on who is telling it. This shows how important it is to analyse any war episode from different angles and how difficult it is for the researcher to avoid the influences of so-called banal nationalism (Billig, 2014). It is precisely at this significant point, in the healthy ambition to identify certain prejudices of this nature, that our interest in Frederick Hardman's testimony lies.
This chapter is based on some earlier research. Firstly, and although today it may be considered a settled question, the aims of the Spanish-Moroccan War have been much discussed. For a long time, it was argued that O'Donnell needed a policy of prestige, which would guarantee greater internal stability and international recognition. Lécuyer and Serrano referred, for example, to a last romantic war (1976: 116): conceived as an instrument of national regeneration, alien to the materialistic logic of the industrial century. Similarly, Madariaga noted the unusualness of the high-handed language adopted by a second-rate power, Elizabethan Spain, and emphasized the God-given character of the conflict: “It was presented to public opinion as the sacred duty of washing away the outraged national honour” (Madariaga, 2009, p.20).