Every time that from Spain, for some reason or another, the question of sovereignty over Gibraltar is raised, from the other side of the Strait, as if produced by an echo, the claims of Morocco over Ceuta and Melilla arrive. Regardless of who they should or should belong to today, I'm not going to go into that topic because it doesn't concern me, today I'm going to try to explain why they can't be put in the same bag.
Gribaltar
In 1700, after the death of Carlos II without descendants, the European powers disputed the Spanish throne, because although Spain was no longer the empire that it had been, it was still a power. On the one hand, Felipe de Anjou (House of the Bourbons) –with the support of France– and on the other, Archduke Carlos (House of the Habsburgs, the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs, to which the deceased king belonged) –with the coalition formed by Austria, England, Holland, Savoy, Prussia and Portugal. In 1701 the War of Succession began, a European war with overtones of civil war, since Castile supported the Bourbon and Aragon supported Archduke Carlos.
In this context, on August 3, 1704, an Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of Admiral Rooke appeared before Gibraltar. This fleet does not come on behalf of England, but Archduke Charles, one of the claimants to the throne. Faced with an important naval force -about 900 cannons threatening from the sea-, the defenses of Gibraltar, under the command of Sergeant Major Diego Salinas, had 80 soldiers, a hundred militiamen and 120 cannons, of which a third were useless. The English urged surrender on behalf of the Archduke. However, as most of Spain, including Gibraltar, had already paid allegiance to Philip of Anjou, the fortress decided to resist. The Anglo-Dutch fleet thoroughly bombarded the rock and they had no choice but to surrender. The important nuance is that Salinas did not surrender to the English, but to Archduke Carlos. But it is then that the English do something that, in my country, is called an act of piracy:Admiral Rooke, disobeying the orders of his superior in command, the German Jorge Hesse Darmstadt, took the rock in the name of Queen Anne of England.
The Last of Gibraltar (Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau)
In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht was signed in which Philip of Anjou (Philip V) was recognized as King of Spain and of the Indies. For this recognition by the allies, Felipe V had to renounce his rights to the throne of France and cede sovereignty over Naples, Flanders, Sardinia and Sicily. England, always ready to take a cut, obtained Menorca, the monopoly for thirty years on the slave trade with the Spanish territories in America and, thanks to its policy of faits accomplis, Gibraltar. Menorca recovered in 1782 when a Franco-Spanish fleet defeated the English, during the US War of Independence… and Gibraltar is still there more than three centuries later.
Ceuta and Melilla.
From the Moroccan point of view, they base their claims on geographical issues, since both cities are surrounded by Moroccan territory, but never on historical and sovereignty reasons, in which they have nothing to scratch. Basically because Ceuta has been Spanish since 1581, Melilla since 1497 and the kingdom of Morocco, as such, became independent from France in 1956. Being generous and assimilating the kingdom of Morocco to the Alawite dynasty, which continues to rule today, we would go to 1659 when the Alawites occupied Marrakesh and established the Alaouite sultanate. Therefore, Ceuta and Melilla never, and I say never, belonged to Morocco.
What would Morocco have to do to be able to base its claims on historical or sovereignty reasons?
In the case of Melilla, Morocco would have to become heir to the Almoravid, Almohad and Benimeri empires - the empires that dominated the Maghreb between the 11th and 13th centuries - and, in this way, could even claim all of the Maghreb and much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).
With Ceuta they would have to go back further, for example to the times of the North African Berber tribes that lived scattered throughout North Africa, because since the 10th century Ceuta was under the sovereignty of the Caliphate of Córdoba, in the 11th it became part of the taifa of Malaga, in the XIII to that of Murcia, from the XIV belonged to the Nasrid kingdom of Granada and from 1415 to Portugal. And from 1581 to Spain when under the head of Felipe II the crowns of Spain and Portugal were united. By the way, Ceuta was granted the honorary title of “Always Noble and Loyal ” because in 1640, when the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal separated, the Ceutís decided to remain under the sovereignty of the Spanish crown.
I know that it is a quick and brief explanation, but I think it serves to give us an idea that Morocco's claims are held in place with pins, if we compare them with Gibraltar, since Ceuta and Melilla have never, and I mean never, been part of Morocco .
By the way, do you know what was the moment in history when Spain came closest to losing Ceuta and Melilla? Well, in 1801. Due to the scarcity of the harvests and as had been done before, the Spanish government initiated the procedures to buy wheat from the Alaouite sultanate. Given the refusal of Sultan Suleiman, Godoy, King Carlos IV's favorite, ordered the Spanish ambassador to offer Ceuta and Melilla as currency for the coveted wheat. The sultan, who wanted to be remembered for having taken Ceuta and Melilla by force, refused... and to this day.