Our Friends Beneath the Sands

by Martin Windrow

  18 In the first years of the 20th century fortified stations marked the advance of the railway down the Zousfana; Ben Zireg, built in 1904, was between Beni Ounif and Colomb Béchar. Although this was essentially a military route, little frontier villages sprang up along the railway to service the garrisons. The tracks also brought increased prosperity to the Arab merchants in the south-eastern oases, by opening up a quicker and cheaper export route than the long and dangerous caravan tracks westwards to the Tafilalt and then north across the High Atlas. (Courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  19 The colour party with the flag of 1st RE gives a detachment from the regiment a send-off from the railway station at Sidi bel Abbès on their way to Taourirt in eastern Morocco, via the frontier town of Oujda; from there they will march on foot. The 3rd, 5th and 6th Battalions of 1st RE operated in 1907 – 11 on the high plains around the Moulouya river, where Taourirt post was established in June 1910. In May 1911 a company from VI/1st RE came to grief at Alouana during General Girardot’s operations to draw tribal attention away from the uprising around Fes provoked by Sultan Moulay Hafid. (Courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  20 Before the First World War – and for many years afterwards – the only means of evacuating casualties from wilderness battlefields were (left to right) the mule cacolet, with two chairs; the mule litter, with two stretchers for prone men; and the camel litter with the same load, here with canopies rigged. Although morphine might be available, all gave a ride somewhere between the uncomfortable and the agonizing, usually lasting several days, and the wounded suffered terribly from the sun and the flies. This photo is captioned 1903. (Courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  21 Légionnaires of 1st (Mounted) Company, 1st RE in camp at Safsafte while escorting a convoy westwards from Guercif to Msoun, which was occupied in May 1913. The soldier at left is dressed for sentry duty, in the mule companies’ typical field uniform of sun helmet, white fatigues, broad blue sash, and black leather equipment with cartridge pouches for his M1886/93 Lebel magazine rifle; in camp, he wears canvas shoes instead of hobnailed boots. Several men wear the red-and-blue képi, with or without a khaki cover – it was always a more popular headgear than the ‘melon’ helmet. The man in the right background with his hands on his hips, wearing a brass-buttoned white jacket with gold forearm stripes, is their sergeant. (Photo N. Boumendil)

  22 Well-known photo of a Mounted Company soldier giving his ‘brêle’ a trickle from his 2-litre waterbottle. The mule’s official load was, ahead of the saddle, a bolster-shaped 44lb sack of oats; the men’s greatcoats rolled in their tent-sections; two wallets with picket line and pin, cooking gear and camp tools; and usually, on top of it all, a chance-gathered bundle of firewood. Below and behind the saddle were a pair of big saddlebags; two spare waterbottles; spare horseshoes and nails; rolled blankets; reserve ammunition, and anything from two to fifteen days’ rations for the men. (Musée de l’Empéri, courtesy M.Raoul Brunon)

  23 Mounted Company légionnaires working on the gateway of their new post, while to the right others in patrol kit lead in saddle- and pack-mules. Left, in front of the gate pillars, are a lieutenant or warrant officer with a white sun helmet, and another just in from patrol, wearing tinted goggles on a khaki helmet over a wrapped white cheich. The post is unidentified, but it is certainly in the frontier country of the Sud-Oranais and eastern Morocco, and the photo dates from before the First World War. (SIHLE, courtesy John Robert Young)

  24 Looking southwards across the broad bed of the Oued Guir from the palmerie and kasbah of Boudenib, at the red rock gara where Lieutenant Vary of VI/1st RE and his 75 men defended the blockhouse on the night of 1/2 September 1908. Ruins – apparently of a later construction on the same spot – are just visible on the skyline of the tabletop, about one-third of the way in from the left escarpment. The distance from the camera is about 1,000 yards. (Author’s photo)

  25 The Boudenib blockhouse, seen from the south on the day following Vary’s defence, after at least one 80mm mountain gun had been brought up. On the previous night the tribesmen had massed in the foreground of this photo before attacking the blockhouse from three sides. Beyond the goumiers at the left is the dark palmerie, far below and beyond the river to the north. (Photo Garaud)

  26 Guercif, on the Oued Moulouya in the middle of the high plains, was almost half way from the Algerian border to Fes; Lyautey’s patrols westwards from Taourirt reached here in 1910. Guercif is a typically Spartan enclosure, basically a caravanserai with a watchtower (from which this photo was taken). There is a firing step along the inside of the crenellated walls, and around the basic buildings plenty of room has been left for the tents, animals and baggage of convoys stopping overnight. (Photo G. Tecourt)

  27 Légionnaires building barracks at Taourirt post, c.1911; the Legion always did its own construction work. The defensive walls of a new post were raised first, and barracks and other internal buildings were only added when the first permanent garrison was installed, usually the following winter. (Courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  28 On the great open plain of the Chaouia behind Casablanca, General d’Amade’s Landing Corps manoeuvred in open rectangular formations that might be a mile across, with the infantry forming the faces and the artillery, baggage, and herds of rations-on-the-hoof in the centre. At other times two of these ‘squares’ were formed, one for offensive action and one protecting the impedimenta. (From Rankin, photo Reginald Kann)

  29 Men of one of the Legion battalions in action at Settat, 15 January 1908, during General d’Amade’s first march to that town. The forward face of a ‘square’ deployed for action in a single rank, so a battalion occupied about 1,000 yards of frontage, with its ammunition mules close behind. A second battalion waited in support, drawn up 450 – 850 yards behind in line of platoon columns, ready to deploy where and when they were needed. The artillery were ‘en batterie’ close to these supports; cavalry always guarded open flanks, and General d’Amade kept a modest reserve under his own hand. (From Rankin, photo Reginald Kann)

  30 These Arab tribal horsemen of the western Moroccan plains are in fact French-allied ‘partisans’ – or at least they were, on the day the photo was taken – but their appearance is indistinguishable from the cavalry who attacked General d’Amade’s battalions on the Chaouia in spring 1908. (Photo Gillot & Ratel)

  31 ‘Honour to the Brave’: after d’Amade’s success on the Casablanca plains the 6th Battalion, 1st Foreign were recalled to Sidi bel Abbès in August 1908. Like any unit returning from active service VI/1st RE were given a lavish welcome, both by the regiment and also by at least some of the town’s civilians. The fact that postcards commemorating such events were put on sale by a commercial studio – even if only in Algeria – showed that by this date the Legion’s renown was well established. (Photo N.Boumendil)

  32 The sale of a postcard celebrating the courage of an individual légionnaire is remarkable testimony to the public mood in Algeria, though not unprecedented: the blinded Légionnaire Haberthur had been publicized in this way in summer 1910. During General Alix’s operations in north-eastern Morocco in 1913 after the establishment of the Protectorate, Sergeant Panther of I/1st RE was wounded while saving the life of Lieutenant Grosjean after their company commander had been killed, in an attack by Beni Bou Yahi tribesmen on the camp at Nekhila on 10 April. Panther himself would be killed in June 1917, as a warrant officer leading a platoon of his regiment’s 1st (Mounted) Company in the hills north of the Taza corridor. (Photo N. Boumendil)

  33 This and the other photos on this page were published in July 1913 in a major article in the magazine L‘Illustration which was clearly part of an official attempt to improve the Legion’s image at a time of intensely hostile German propaganda. This légionnaire of the 2nd RE photographed at Saida, wearing full field marching order and sun helmet and sporting the Colonial Medal with a campaign clasp, was said to be an Englishman named ‘De Bulmerinq’ – one suspects a phonetic approximation.

  34 , 35 Portraits of many natio
nalities of légionnaires were published in L’Illustration. A Cuban, ‘Domingues’, gives the lie to the claim that the Legion accepted only white recruits. The original caption for the Austrian, ‘Bezdicek’, claims that this veteran of 15 years’ service and many campaigns was a former captain in the Austro-Hungarian Army; it is perhaps not too fanciful to see in his face the melancholy of the disgraced gentleman-ranker? His name, if genuine, may indicate a Czech, at a time when that people were agitating for national autonomy.

  36 This barrack room shown in the L’Illustration feature conforms almost exactly to Frederic Martyn’s description of the Quartier Viénot in 1889. The men have been carefully posed as if at their ease – in fact the mattress and blankets had to be folded away during the day. Such rooms were about 75ft long and 20ft wide, with windows at each end and doors in each side wall. The rifle rack is at the far end, and the cabinets hoisted up below the ceiling contain the squad’s tableware for meals. Each man’s clothing is meticulously stacked on the shelf above his bedspace, with his equipment hanging below behind a towel forming a curtain.

  37 This platoon, apparently photographed on the plains of north-eastern Morocco, have stacked their rifles during a halt, but thirty-odd dropped knapsacks are not evident here, so they were probably posed during a short-range local operation close to the column. Note the sentries spaced out individually about 100 yards beyond, between the platoon and the higher ground.

  38 A fine natural study of two officers representing mainstays of the old Armée d’Afrique before the Great War; when on column, Legion units were almost always covered by cavalrymen of the Spahis. These two unidentified veterans are a lieutenant colonel of the Legion, wearing a caped greatcoat over his service uniform, and an Algerian captain squadron commander of Spahis. In 1874 it had been ordered that captain was the highest rank an Arab officer could attain, and after 1897 this ceiling was actually lowered to lieutenant. (AdeQ Historical Archives)

  39 A cheerful group of officers, with a civilian guest, picnic in the field in north-eastern Morocco during operations against Ouled Salem tribesmen in 1913. The officers wearing the native cheich scarf/turban and djellabah robe over their uniforms (near left) are named as Captain d’Alencon and Lieutenant Pollet, leading Arab auxiliaries. General Maurice Baumgarten (standing right) was Lyautey’s reliable deputy at Oujda; in May 1914 he would lead the eastern force, including two battalions of 1st RE, in the final elimination of the ‘Taza gap’.

  40 The Bastille Day ceremonies at Taza in July 1914 were effectively a repeat of the occasion on 18 May when the flag of 1st RE was paraded in front of General Lyautey and 6,000 troops to celebrate the link-up there of Gouraud’s and Baumgarten’s forces from west and east, opening up the ‘Taza corridor’ between Fes and Oujda for the first time. From 1910 the field dress of légionnaires in Morocco had increasingly been the M1901 khaki drill Colonial Troops issue; the képi-cover was removed for parades. (Courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  41 At Taza, soldiers lift the badly wounded Major Met, commanding officer of I/1st RE, out of a horse ambulance after an agonizing journey in the summer heat. At Sidi Belkassem on 5 June 1914 he had led his battalion into the attack up a slope, with the bugles playing his favourite march ‘Karoline’; a bullet shattered both his legs, and one would have to be amputated. His battalion successfully petitioned the high command for ‘Daddy’ Met’s promotion. (Photo Réty, courtesy Jacques Gandini)

  Photograph section two:

  42 Hilltop post in the Rif, 1925 – 26; Clérisse captions this as Kifane, a post in the eastern sector which managed to hold out. Its appearance is probably fairly typical: the walls are a patchwork of dry stone, timbers, and what may be either mud bricks or earth-filled ammo boxes, with rough loopholing. (Photo Gillot & Ratel)

  43 An outlying blockhouse of the post above, seen from the open connecting trench that linked it to the main garrison. Such flanking positions, held by only a handful of men to cover a water point or a masked approach to the post, were extremely vulnerable. (Photo Gillot & Ratel)

  44 The summit of Astar, looking roughly east to west, with (at left) the dark neighbouring hill that was occupied by the Rifians throughout the action of 4 – 5 June 1925. At centre is the narrow summit shelf, today surrounded by the remains of drystone walling showing the position of the upper range of buildings; the exposed gun platform at the post’s north-eastern corner is just outside the photo to the right. The figure just visible sitting on the ruined wall at centre right gives an idea of scale. This photo shows the sharply sloping ground of the defended area south of the summit shelf; in 1925 this was the interior of the post, defended on 4 – 5 June by Captain Pechkoff’s 22nd Company of the Cazaban Battalion. (Photo Graham Scott)

  45 Looking north-west and downwards from the north-western corner of the summit of Astar, at the shoulder from which 21st Company covered the main western approach to the post; today cactus growth follows the straight traces of the original defensive positions. The English légionnaire Adolphe Cooper served in 21st Company, but his memoir gives no details of holding the hilltop after the original assault. Note the steepness of the northern ravine immediately below the summit shelf. (Author’s photo)

  46 There are few known photos of Legion rankers during the Rif War that show enough specific detail to be worth publishing. These men are clearly inside one of the Colonial Troops’ posts built on the hilltops before Abd el Krim’s offensive; note the loopholed drystone walls. Incidentally, under magnification it is clear that these légionnaires have two types of light machine gun, and thus need two types of ammunition resupply – 8mm rimmed for the old ‘Chauchat’, and 7.5mm rimless for the new FM24. (SIHLE, courtesy John Robert Young)

  47 The English memoirist Adolphe Cooper posed for this studio shot shortly after enlisting for his first hitch in 1914, aged 15 years. His service was interrupted by his wounding at Gallipoli in 1915 and subsequent discharge, but he re-enlisted twice after the Great War. He served under Major Cazaban in VI/1st RE in the Rif, and among the officers he knew and admired were Captain Pechkoff of that battalion and Lieutenant Djindjeradze of 4th REI and 1st REC. Cooper took his final discharge as a sergeant in 1930.

  48 Major Marcel Deslandes, the former Line sergeant who distinguished himself in the Rif in command of II/1st RE. After leading a famous charge at Bibane on 25 May 1925, he fell at the head of his men near Bab Hoceine on 18 July. (SIHLE)

  49a Breguet 14A2 reconnaissance/bomber aircraft on the airfield at Taza, autumn 1925 or spring 1926; about 300 Breguet 14s represented some 80 per cent of the equipment of the Aéronautique Militaire in the Rif and Tache de Taza campaigns. A rack for 16x 10kg (221b) anti-personnel bombs – attached tail-first – can be seen under the fuselage, and the observer mans a pair of Lewis machine guns on a mounting ring that allows depression for firing at ground targets. The ‘Pierrot’ insignia of Escadrille BR 7 is a reminder of the hasty reinforcement of Colonel Armangaud’s 37th Air Observation Regiment in Morocco. The 32nd RAO in France transferred its Sqns BR 201 and 219 to the 37th in early September 1925, and must have grabbed this machine from another of the regiment’s squadrons to make up the detachment’s strength, without taking the time to repaint it. (Photo Henry Clérisse)

  49b Renault FT-17 two-man light tanks, armed with a machine gun or a 37mm cannon, were committed in Morocco for the first time in August 1925 north of Ouezzane, where they supported – among other units – II/1st REI. Here they roll forward across the almost dry Oued Ouergha on their way to the front. (Photo Coutanson)

  50 The terrain of the upper Oued Nekor valley in the eastern Rif, where I/ and III/2nd REI distinguished themselves during the final offensive of May 1926 as units of General Ibos’ Moroccan Division. This is one of some 14,000 aerial photos taken during the campaign, covering nearly 6,000 square miles; this to some extent compensated for the lack of adequate maps of this unexplored region of the nominally Spanish zone. (From Clérisse)

  51 The brothers Abd el Krim el Khattabi. While Mohammed
– seated – provided the vision, the inspiration and the public face of the Rif rising, Mhamed, younger by about ten years, was the quiet military organizer; indeed, some Europeans who met them thought the younger brother the more impressive personality. Note the modesty of their appearance; despite his ambitions and his power, Mohammed Abd el Krim was never seen in any costume more showy than this plain rezzah turban and djellabah. (UPI)

  52 Hubert Lyautey, apparently photographed as a four-star général de corps d’armée during the First World War, when he was in his early sixties. This portrait by Henri Manuel closely resembles the slimmer-faced Lyautey of his active fifties, with a penetrating pale blue gaze, and a dark moustache despite his silver hair.