The Rif War in rugged northern Morocco is remembered for romantic
films and novels about the French Foreign Legion, such as Beau
Geste. In reality, the French intervention, although very
important, was late and secondary in importance to that of the
Spanish. Spain, which had been fighting in Africa since 1909,
suffering disasters such as Barranco del Lobo and victories such as
the cavalry charge in Taxdirt in 1913, had had to face enemies such
as Mizzian, El Roghi, or the famous El Raisuni. Abd-el Krim's
revolt caused 8,000 Spanish deaths at Annual in 1921, and then
loomed over French Morocco, leading to another 5,700 casualties.
This war was not only a campaign of attacks by Rif guerrillas on
isolated forts and columns, but degenerated into trench warfare in
some sectors, and saw the use of tanks, artillery, gas, aviation,
and an amphibious operation that would go on to be closely studied
by the Allies in the Second World War. All of this forced an
effective collaboration between generals Petain and Primo de
Rivera, who, as allies, finally crushed the rebellion after
gathering some 250,000 soldiers and 400 aircraft against some
45-65,000 Riffians. The war also saw the Spanish army completely
reformed, reaching new levels of effectiveness with the founding of
the Spanish Legion and the recruitment of Moroccan soldiers of the
Regulares. These troops, together with a plethora of commanders who
made their combat debuts here, such as Franco, Mola, Queipo de
Llano and Kindelan, would later fight in the Spanish Civil War.
These commanders would be called the "Africanistas" and would
constitute the hard core of the military that rose up against the
government in 1936. The book focuses not only on land military
operations and the organization of the armies - Spanish, French and
Riffian - but also on the air forces and their operations,
including those of an incipient and frustrated Riffian aviation. In
the case of Spain, the Rif War was the birth certificate of its air
forces in combat and here, Spain was the first nation to use
specially designed bomb-aiming devices.
General
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