While the diplomats were wrangling at Algeciras, Morocco, only thirty miles away, was in a state of chaos. The weakness of the sultan’s rule was illustrated by Raisuli’s capture of the British soldier of fortune, Caïd Sir Harry Maclean, instructor-general of the Moorish army, who, after seven months in captivity, was ransomed by the British government for twenty thousand pounds. The activities of the bandit chieftain, who had long subjected the northern districts of the empire to a reign of terror, were brought to an end in 1906, however, by a Franco-Spanish naval demonstration off Tangier. The murder of a French physician at Marrákesh in 1907 provoked prompt retaliation by the French, who occupied the frontier town of Oujda. In July of the same year the Shawia tribesmen attacked the European laborers who were employed in improving the harbor-works of Casablanca and killed nine of them, whereupon French gunboats bombarded the town, and it was occupied by French troops, though thousands of townspeople were killed or wounded before order could be restored. The vigorous action of France at Casablanca fanned into flame the smoldering fanaticism and resentment of the tribes, and for the next year or so the French were engaged in constant fighting along the border. While thus engaged on the eastern frontier and the Atlantic seaboard, France had been giving financial and moral support to Abd-el-Aziz, whose grasp on the Shereefian umbrella was threatened by his brother, Mulai Hafid, who had escaped from prison. Because of his acquiescence to the French demands and his failure to offer armed resistance to the foreign invaders, Abd-el-Aziz’s influence with his people had been steadily waning, and shortly after the bombardment of Casablanca the _ulema_ of Marrákesh declared him deposed and Mulai Hafid sultan. There ensued a year of desultory fighting between the armies of the two brothers, but in August, 1908, while marching on Marrákesh, which was the hotbed of the rebellion, Abd-el-Aziz was defeated and fled for his life, taking refuge within the French lines. He talked vaguely of renewing the struggle, but ended by accepting a pension from his brother and comfortable exile in Tangier, Mulai Hafid being generally accepted by the Moroccans as their new ruler. His rule was scarcely stronger than that of his brother, however, as was shown by his inability to control the Berber tribesmen of the Riff, who in July, 1909, killed a number of European laborers in the vicinity of the Spanish fortress of Melilla, on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. To vindicate her authority Spain sent across the straits an army of fifty thousand men, thereby embarking on a war which has cost her thousands of lives and millions of pesetas, has wrecked such military prestige as she possessed, and continues in sporadic fashion to this day.