Walter Burton Harris

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Walter Burton Harris, painting by Sir John Lavery, 1907
Walter B. Harris by John Lavery (around 1915)

Walter Burton Harris (born August 29, 1866 in London , † April 4, 1933 in Malta ) was an employee of MI6 and the Times correspondent in Morocco .

Life

Harris was born the second of seven children to the wealthy businessman and shipowner Frederick W. Harris. His older brother was Frederick Leverton Harris (1864-1926), who was elected to the British Parliament in 1914 in the East Worcestershire constituency for the Conservative Party . His younger brother Austin Edward was Vice Chairman of Lloyds Bank in 1932. Walter Burton Harris attended Harrow School and spent a short time in Cambridge . Walter B. Harris traveled with another younger brother Clement Harris (1871-1897) and by the age of 18 he had circled the world. He became an employee of the Military Intelligence . He visited Constantinople , India, Egypt and Arkhangelsk . He traveled with William Kirby Green, a later deputy consul in Rabat, Salé and Albania. Harris was gay-oriented and was once married to Jessie Green, Green's niece.

Tangier

From 1886 Harris lived in Tangier . He experienced the installation of the French and Spanish protectorates in Morocco (see French Morocco and Spanish Morocco ). He reported in The Times and books on the impressions of a European in Morocco. In 1892 he visited Yemen . From 1912 Tangier was an international zone under the Treaty of French Morocco . In 1903 Harris was captured by soldiers Ahmed ben Mohammed el-Raisulis in Zinat and held hostage for a few weeks . As a result of the Rif War , which was fought in Spanish Morocco with a contamination strategy by Hugo Stoltzenberg and in French Morocco with a starvation strategy through the military occupation of the fertile parts of the country, around 5,000 to 7,000 refugees from the Rif came to Tangier by 1925 .

From May to June 1925 there was a smallpox epidemic in Tangier, which exacerbated the refugee problem that prevailed there. 1517 vaccinations were carried out.

Harris died of a heart attack in Malta in 1933 . His remains were transferred to Tangier, resting in the cemetery of the local Anglican St. Andrew's Church .

Rif Republic

Harris traveled to the Rif Republic as "Charles Gardiner" ; in the process he passed the regions of Ouezzane and Chefchaouen, which are forbidden for Europeans . In September 1923 he went to the Foreign Office of the German Reich as an arms dealer and wanted to buy submarines for the Navy of the Rif Republic; however, the Foreign Office refused to act as an intermediary. At that time, a German naval officer, who was called Kika , was in charge of the submarine production at Spanish shipyards according to plans from the German Empire. Between 1923 and 1927 he conducted some interviews with Abd el-Krim and his foreign minister, Mohand Azerkane, which he published in The Times under the name Harris.

Books

Harris was suspected of espionage in Yemen in 1892 , the interrogation cell in Saana
  • The Land of the African Sultan: Travels in Morocco (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1889)
  • A Journey through the Yemen (William Blackwood, 1893)
  • Tafilat: The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration to the Atlas Mountains and the Oases of the North-west Sahara (William Blackwood, 1895)
  • From Batum to Baghdad by way of Tiflis, Tabriz and Persian Kurdistan (William Blackwood & Son, 1896)
  • Morocco That Was (William Blackwood & Sons, 1921)
  • France, Spain and the Rif (Arnold, 1927)
  • East for Pleasure: The Narrative of Eight Months' Travel in Burma, Sian, the Netherlands East Indies and French Indo-China (Arnold, 1929)
  • East Again: The Narrative of a Journey in the Near, Middle and Far East (Butterworth, 1933)

Publications in The Times

  • Spain's Moroccan War. Moorish Leader's Challenge. Charges of Cruelty in: The Times, May 30, 1922
  • Conditions in the Rif. English Travelers' Report , in: Times, December 3, 1924;
  • A Rifi Appeal , in: Times, June 26, 1922.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ George Joffé, 1996 Walter Harris and the imperial vision of Morocco , in The Journal of North African Studies , Volume 1, Issue 3 London 1996, pages 248 - 265
  2. ^ New York Times , July 14, 1903, Walter B. Harris Describes His Experience
  3. ↑ Dirk Sasse, French, British and Germans in the Rif War 1921–1926 , p. 85.
  4. ↑ Rudibert Kunz, Rolf-Dieter Müller, Poison gas against Abd el Krim - Germany, Spain and the gas war in Spanish-Morocco 1922–1927 , Freiburg 1990, p. 103.
  5. ↑ Sancho Panza or The Art of Survival . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1975 ( online - Nov. 24, 1975 ).
personal data
SURNAME Harris, Walter Burton
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gardiner, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Correspondent for "The Times" in Morocco
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH April 4, 1933
Place of death Malta