WHILE SOME ZAIAN CLANS did come in to talk terms with Henrys following the occupation of Khenifra in June 1914, much of the confederation was still holding together under Moha ou Hammou’s surprisingly durable leadership; perched out of reach up in the hills, they continued to make swoops down on to the plain around the town. In a report to Lyautey, Paul Henrys stressed that down here the usual approach of announcing that the French came in the name of the Maghzan was counter-productive, since the Berbers had always regarded the Maghzan with loathing and contempt (a point also made by Major Ibos); they would only respond to French negotiators who dealt directly with them, not through Arab intermediaries, and who gave proper weight to their customary laws and tribal institutions.53 Frustrated at his inability to achieve the negotiated settlement he had hoped for with the Zaians and several other tribes that followed their example, Colonel Henrys broke up his column into three brigades, one of them at Khenifra itself and the others at Sidi Lamine and at Mrirt (where the VI/2nd RE were based).
Goumiers and cavalry patrolled between them, trying without much success to seal off the hostile Berbers in the hills from the submitted clans on the plain. Moha ou Hammou continued to punish the latter with regular raids and to skirmish almost up to the walls of Khenifra throughout July 1914, which rewarded his followers with loot while weakening the fragile trust of the newly submitted in the strength of French protection. There seemed little prospect of the three mobile groups achieving more than stalemate during this campaigning season, but Henrys hoped that the next winter would weaken Moha ou Hammou’s influence by forcing other clans to negotiate in order to be able to bring their beasts down to the lowland pastures. Up on the Fes-Oujda front, meanwhile, General Gouraud faced much the same situation in the hills flanking the newly opened Taza corridor, though the resistance he faced was more fragmented. He, too, could hope to consolidate when the next winter clamped down on tribal activity; but winter was still four months away when – with everything still to play for – the pieces on the board were dramatically rearranged.54
IN THE LAST WEEK OF JULY 1914, telegrams from Lyautey summoned his four western regional commanders to Rabat for a conference of the utmost urgency and secrecy. When they convened there on the 30th, the Commissioner Resident-General informed them that war with Germany was about to break out in Europe, and that Paris was instructing him to cut and run.55
42 French hilltop post in the Rif, 1925 – 26. (Fuller captions, and picture credits, will be found on pages xxxvi – xliii.)
43 Outlying blockhouse, seen from trench connecting it to the post.
44 The summit of Astar, looking east to west, with traces of 1925 post, photographed in 2007
45 Looking north-west from the post ruins on Astar
46 Legion squad in a post in the Rif, 1925 – 26
47, 48 Légionnaire Adolphe Cooper in 1914; and Major Marcel Deslandes, killed leading II/1st RE on 18 July 1925
49a & 49b New tools for colonial warfare, 1925 – 26: a Breguet 14A2 at Taza, and Renault FT17 tanks crossing the Ouergha river
50 Terrain in the eastern Rif: aerial photo of Oued Nekor valley
51 The brothers Abd el Krim – the younger, Mhamed (left), and Mohammed
52 General Hubert Lyautey, c.1916
53 Marshal Lyautey, 1921 – 25
54 & 55 Légionnaire Albert Neal with comrades; 3rd REI, early 1930s
56 Légionnaires road-building in Morocco, 1920s – 30s
57, 58 Légionnaire with typical tattoos; and Légionnaire Bobby Lincoln, 2nd REI, early 1930s
59 Senior NCOs’ canteen at a regimental depot, 1930s
62 & 63 Lieutenant Djindjeradze, and Trumpeter Slavko; IV/1st REC, 1932
60 ABOVE & 61 OPPOSITE, ABOVE Légionnaires in action in the High Atlas, c.1932
64 Légionnaire of 1st Foreign Cavalry, early 1930s
65 Major Prince Aage, 3rd REI, 1936
66 Terrain in the Djebel Sahro, photographed in 1997
67 Legion camp in the mountains, early 1930s
68 Monument to the dead of 1933, at foot of Bu Gafer
69 View from the summit of Bu Gafer
70 u-Skunti, the rebel leader at Mt Baddou in 1933
71 & 72 Mt Baddou, August 1933: Berber partisans; and Légionnaire Ronald House, II/2nd REI
73 & 74 Légionnaire Hunter; and General Huré reviewing Legion unit
75 Berliet VUDB armoured carriers of VI/1st REC, early 1930s
76 Panhard 165/175 armoured car of CMA/4th REI, February – March 1934
77 Motorized Company/4th Foreign Infantry; Foum el Hassane, 1937
78 Company jazzband at Foum el Hassane, Christmas 1936
79 Panhard 179 armoured troop carrier of CMA/4th REI
80, 81 Sergeant Charles Milassin, Tindouf, 1939; and a légionnaire in Paris, 14 July 1939
82 The abandoned fort at Ain ben Tili, photographed in 1993
83 ‘À nos amis sous les sables’
15.
The Lobster Shell
1914 – 18
During my whole period of command in the Oranais and Morocco the Legion have been my troops – my dearest troops; and during the War of 1914 – 1919 they were my best resource and my final reserve.
General Lyautey1
AT A MOMENT WHEN HIS TROOPS were committed to continuing operations on two fronts, Lyautey was instructed to send half of them back to France immediately. It was recommended that he give up most of the territory he had occupied, concentrating his remaining troops and European civilians in defensive enclaves around the Atlantic ports; but outside these, if feasible, he might attempt to preserve lines of communication eastwards along the Taza corridor from Fes to Oujda, and from Fes and Mèknes southwards to Khenifra.
In practice, of course, ‘lines of communication’ is a phrase capable of the widest range of interpretation, and Paris was leaving the essential decisions about the future of the Protectorate in the resident-general’s hands. Lyautey’s response was that a general withdrawal would be disastrous both politically and militarily. In the djebel, Europe was a meaningless concept; every event was interpreted in purely local terms, and if the French soldiers marched away, then obviously they were admitting a defeat for which tribal leaders would successfully claim the credit. There would be massacres of Christian and Jewish civilians in the towns, and widespread uprisings in the countryside would threaten the units retreating towards the coast. Lyautey did not, of course, protest the withdrawal of his troops; this was ‘la Revanche’, for which the French Army had been waiting all his adult life, and his own family home was in the Moselle border country. He sent back twenty battalions and six batteries immediately, promising more as soon as transport was available. However, his regional commanders agreed that if a thin crust of troops could be maintained around the vital centres, and if an illusion of ‘business as usual’ could be created, then it might be possible to hold on to what they had achieved.2
This would only be feasible with the continuing support of the grands caids of the High Atlas, to ensure that El Hiba or another like him did not seize the opportunity to come blazing back through the mountains to burn the French out of Morocco from the south upwards. At Marrakesh on 2 August, Colonels Maurice de Lamothe and Emile Mangin convened all the major southern tribal leaders to tell them of the outbreak of the European war. By far the most significant and best informed figure among them was Madani el Glaoui, and it was Madani’s certainty and eloquence that convinced his fellow chiefs to reaffirm their loyalty to the Maghzan and France. His decision naturally rested on calculated self-interest; he believed that the French would ultimately be the winners, and that he could exploit profitably their now still more urgent need of his alliance.3
It was still only two years since General Moinier had had to use artillery on the streets of Fes, and it was vital to give the northern cities a convincing impression of undiminished French strength despite the fact that battalions were visibly marching to the harbours. To achieve this illusion
Lyautey resorted to tricks that probably appealed to the theatrical side of his nature. In return for his combat veterans, he was receiving a trickle of replacement units of southern French Territorials, and these were quickly issued with sun helmets and the Legion’s blue sashes to wear with their white fatigues; these men were approaching 40 years of age, but they looked convincing enough. Even European civilians were issued with rifles, boots and the red chéchia caps worn by Zouaves; by mixing these toy soldiers with elements of units that were about to embark Lyautey kept uniforms on the streets, and he even stage-managed a mass review of some 25,000 troops at Rabat in August. He boasted that he had ‘scooped out the lobster but kept its shell’; but while he might have deceived the coffee-houses in the medinas, the frontier tribes could not see his conjuring tricks. On 4 August, the day after Germany declared war on France, two battalions marching north from Khenifra for the coast took 66 casualties in an ambush.4
THE LEGION WOULD PROVIDE an important part of the field forces with which Lyautey would hold (and in one respect, extend) his area of control during the next four years. Its units were not withdrawn from Morocco, although there was much shuffling of personnel to and from the Algerian depots. The Legion did not expect men to fight against the country of their birth, and most légionnaires from Germany and Austria – Hungary – about 12 per cent of the total who served during 1914 – 18 – were retained in North Africa while other nationalities provided the backbone for new marching regiments for the main war fronts.5
In a much more ambitious repetition of 1870, during September and October 1914 so-called 2nd Marching Regiments of both the 1st and 2nd Foreign, each of four battalions, were formed at the Mailly training area in France from new foreign volunteers stiffened with drafts of veterans from North Africa; three-battalion 3rd and 4th Marching Regiments/1st RE were also formed in November 1914, though these only existed for a few months. A year later the remaining légionnaires of these 14 battalions who had survived the battles in the Argonne, Artois and Champagne would be amalgamated into a single three-battalion Foreign Legion Marching Regiment (RMLE), which would serve on the Western Front with great distinction until the Armistice. The subject of this book, however, is the Legion’s colonial campaigns, and the present chapter is limited to the less familiar story of the overstretched units that remained in Morocco. Like that of the British troops who spent 1914 – 18 on the North-West Frontier of India, their record was naturally overshadowed at the time, and has been ever since, by the infinitely more costly battles in France. Lyautey had the lowest priority for men and materièl, and experienced great difficulty in retaining regimental officers, who could only regard Morocco as a sideshow to the great national drama. It is against that background that his operations in Morocco must be considered (a brief summary of the Legion’s experience on the European war fronts is given in Appendix 1 at the end of this book).
IN ALL, LYAUTEY SENT BACK to France more than he was asked for – no fewer than 37 of his 60 infantry battalions, with cavalry and artillery in proportion. His infantry in the west were reduced at a stroke from 48 to just 17 battalions, and those in the east from 12 battalions to 6. The average infantry strength available to him at any one time after autumn 1914 was about 23 battalions (with a brief peak of 30), the great majority of them in the western pillar of his now thin and shaky archway. His total strength was about 20,000 regular troops, which had to be spread along an L-shaped front totalling some 300 miles, from Khenifra up to Fes and then across to Oujda, at the same time providing a minimum garrison for the south-eastern desert. Of his battalions in the field, 5, eventually were from the Legion, plus 3 mounted companies; légionnaires thus provided about 25 per cent of Lyautey’s infantry, and at any one time probably half of his European infantry. (By November 1915 only 4 of the total of 13 Legion battalions were engaged in Europe, but those fronts were naturally the meatgrinders that consumed the great majority of wartime recruits.)6 The only other white battalions rotated through Morocco were drawn from the 5 penal Bats d’Af, and to a lesser extent from about 15 war-raised Zouave battalions, most of them Territorials and middle-aged reservists who manned static garrisons throughout French North Africa. Lyautey’s other units were 6 battalions of Algerian and Tunisian Skirmishers and 2 of Moroccans, and (the largest single contingent) a varying force of between 7 and 12 West African battalions of Senegalese Skirmishers.
This over-extended garrison would be tested by the tribes around both Taza and Khenifra as soon as the war broke out, and it would be under constant pressure for the next four years. The pattern for the Legion from spring 1915 would be a steady shift of units of the 1st Foreign from the northern front to join those of the 2nd Foreign in the west; initially this was in response to the greater and more persistent threat presented by the Zaians and their allied tribes, and later to serve Lyautey’s longer term operational aim of driving a route right across the southern Middle Atlas to transform his ‘archway’ into a ‘figure-of-eight’. The strain on their manpower due to officer transfers and unreplaced casualties would become increasingly serious by 1917 – 18.7
The French units would have help, however, and not only at a distance, from the harkas raised by the Atlas lords. French accounts naturally dwell upon the part played by French units, with an occasional off-hand mention of ‘partisans’; but local participation was not limited to those rag-tag gangs hired in the hope – often over-optimistic – that they would stay loyal for a single expedition in return for a rifle and a chance to loot. In all, perhaps 20 per cent of Lyautey’s total forces in 1914 – 18 were locally raised. Goumier and moghazni auxiliaries provided a scouting screen for French columns, and to some extent replaced the nine regular cavalry squadrons that he had also sent back to France. In addition, temporary alliances were often formed with local caids armed by the French. The tribes never needed goading or trickery to persuade them to fight one another, and at no stage of Lyautey’s operations did his aggression against one group distract others from their constant mutual warfare. The French simply channelled existing tribal hostilities to serve the Maghzan cause, and the pro- and anti-French nature of such clashes was more often a gloss than the actual causus belli.
ON THE OUTBREAK of war Colonel Tahon’s Marching Regiment/1st RE (I/, II/ and VI/1st) was holding the eastern half of the Taza corridor. The I/1st (Major Théveney) were dispersed in companies all the way between Taza itself and Taourirt (see Map 18); II/1st (Major Duriez), VI/1st (Major Drouin), 1st (Mounted) Company (Captain Tramuset) and the sole Mounted Company/2nd RE were in various camps around Taza itself. As early as 9 August, tribesmen attacked both Msoun – to which the 1st (Mounted) were immediately sent – and a II/1st RE company camp outside Taza. Early the next day that battalion’s 6th and 8th Companies went out as part of a small column under Lieutenant-Colonel de Tinan to clear a village at Ras Sirai to the north-east of the town. That afternoon they, and another company-and-a-half who had to be sent out to cut them free, returned after paying a price as high as any suffered in a single action for years: 5 Legion officers, a warrant officer and 21 NCOs and rankers killed, and 47 wounded.8
The months that followed introduced the northern three battalions and two mule companies to the life that the whole Legion in Morocco would lead for the next four years. The constant for all units was labour and security duties along the lines of communication – building roads and small company posts along them, holding the posts, making local patrols around them, and providing regular convoy escorts to keep the roads open along the corridors they guarded. At exhaustingly frequent intervals and in all seasons companies were also gathered to take part in Mobile Group operations – retaliatory or deterrent columns up into the hills. Their routine service along the lines of communication cost them a slow drain of casualties to ambushers and snipers, and the more aggressive thrusts into the Berber highlands were often resisted with a determined skill that exacted a higher price. The versatility of the mounted companies in particular, and the Legion’s overall
reputation for steadiness under fire, meant that its units almost invariably provided the vanguard for advances and the rearguard for withdrawals by mixed columns. The French term for disengagement under fire – se decrocher, ‘to unhook oneself’ – aptly conveys the difficulty of a manoeuvre that was always exploited by the Berbers. Before the first winter of the war this was demonstrated, shockingly, by Colonial troops on the Middle Atlas front.
AROUND KHENIFRA, THE KEYSTONE of the French line guarding the western edge of the Middle Atlas, the autumn was relatively quiet. By the beginning of November the regional commander, Colonel Henrys, was satisfied that during the winter the competition for the reduced area of unguarded pasturage on the left (east) bank of the Oum er Rebia would take most of the tribes’ attention. Some Zaian clans, resentful of Moha ou Hammou’s robust methods of encouraging loyalty, even began bringing their sick to the French infirmary, allowing contacts to be established. Moha himself was camped on the left bank at El Herri a few miles south of Khenifra, with perhaps 500 warriors and the same number of dependants. He made no provocative moves; but in the second week of November his proximity proved too great a temptation for the town commander, Lieutenant-Colonel René Laverdure.
Our Friends Beneath the Sands Page 60