At a time when most European nations were stepping up the acquisition of vast colonial empires, Spain was losing the last remnants of hers. Yet within a few years after the disastrous war of 1898 with the United States, which had forced Spaniards to acknowledge their secondary status among European military powers, their government found it necessary to show an active interest in expansion in northern Morocco. That country, if only because of its geographical position and the presence of the presidios of Ceuta, and Melilla, could not be ignored by the Spaniards despite their lack of enthusiasm for new colonial enterprises.