This worked particularly well with British administrators, who were primarily middle-class men but had aristocratic pretensions and were often pleased to associate with the highest echelons of Indian or African society. Now this isn't to say that indigenous rulers were simply puppets. Often they retained real power. This was certainly true in India, where more than a third of the territory was ruled by Indian princes. The French protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia were ruled by Arab monarchs, and the French also ruled through native kings in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. For the most part, Europeans could almost always rely on their superior military technology to coerce local rulers into doing what the Europeans wanted, and they could replace native officials with Europeans if they had to. But in general, they preferred to rule indirectly.