On 8 August the Spanish government fell (just one of thirty-nine administrations within twenty years). In the Djibala, troops had to be withdrawn from operations against Raisuli to be shipped to Melilla, and although others pulled back to defend only their largest posts, even some of these were overrun. Two of the most significant consequences of Anual were that captured Spanish guns began shelling surviving coastal garrisons, and that by October the younger of the Abd el Krim brothers – profiting from the ‘internal lines of communication’ that the Spanish lacked – was leading a Rifian force west into the Ghomara country on the Oued Lau to seek alliances.
IN FRENCH MOROCCO, this catastrophe was attributed simply to Spanish incompetence. It naturally increased unrest along the zonal frontier and attracted the interest of Moroccan urban intellectuals, but in general the population of the submitted regions remained quiet. France had no intention of becoming directly involved in Spain’s problems, and while Lyautey naturally set his intelligence networks to gathering information about Abd el Krim, his focus was still on the Middle Atlas.30
In the spring of 1922, General Poeymirau and Colonel Freydenberg gathered mobile groups once again to tighten up both loops of the ‘figure-of-eight’. They made progress at some points along the western edge of the mountains and around the headwaters of the Moulouya, and Moha ou Said – the last of the old trio of pre-war resistance leaders – was forced to flee into the highest valleys. However, although clans were brought to terms, lines of posts were inched forwards, roads were improved, and the cordons protecting submitted lowland tribes from the highlanders’ raids were strengthened, the results certainly could not be claimed to vindicate Lyautey’s traditional ‘oilstain’ analysis. The system in which he had placed his confidence ever since Galliéni’s first lessons on the Tonkin frontier in the 1890s may be said to have reached its limits in the foothills of the Middle Atlas. Here, the edges of dissidence retreated before the mobile groups, but – unlike the old days on the Zousfana and Guir – they certainly did not dissolve. Rather, each French advance compressed the irreconcilables into a denser core, not fragmenting but encouraging tribal cooperation, and under leaders such as Sidi Raho of the Beni Ouarain they struck back at any opportunity. Chipping away at its outworks was one thing, but actually breaching and capturing the Middle Atlas redoubts would demand a series of sustained operations employing every weapon in the French armoury.
Since Marshal Lyautey’s comforting narrative of inexorable pacification by largely political means was now out of date, he had to reassure the politicians that there was a visible end to his current levels of expenditure. He now drew a distinction between ‘useful Morocco’, whose pacification would be profitable, and bleak tribal refuges that could safely be left alone once surrounded by networks of access roads and regional bases. In 1922, he predicted that in 1923 his troop numbers could be reduced from 86,000 to 78,000, and in 1924 to as few as 50,000, as he moved from a ‘pacification’ to a ‘pacified’ budget, with native auxiliaries steadily taking over more of the burden. The War Ministry was happy to cut his troop levels, but despite the real progress made in 1922, some episodes during that year’s campaign hardly supported his apparent confidence.31
THE SPRING 1922 MOBILE GROUPS had seen eight Legion battalions committed, including II/ and III/3rd REI with General Decherf’s group in the western edge of the Middle Atlas. This formation of five battalions, with cavalry, mountain guns and plentiful goumiers, operated between Tazouta and Skoura on the northern edge of the Massif de Tichoukt – exactly where VI/2nd RE had been ambushed five years previously (see Map 19). Although columns had planted some precarious new posts east of Tazouta, the tribes were still vigorously hostile, and the tortured terrain further south had not been penetrated. An advanced camp had been placed at Skoura in January, and at the beginning of May the mobile group from Tazouta used this as a jumping-off point for another push. Several of the officers of the Decherf Group would leave their modest marks on the history of the French empire.
The 24-year-old Lieutenant Henry Marie Just de Lespinasse de Bournazel of the 22nd (Moroccan) Spahis was the image of the aristocratic cavalryman. Tall, blond, immaculate in his scarlet regimental tunic and favouring a cigarette-holder, he in fact had rather more to offer than his appearance suggested. He had volunteered at the age of 17 and had spent eighteen months in the ranks on the Western Front before being commissioned, returning in the autumn of 1918 in time for the last battles. He had been in Morocco since January 1921, learning his new trade in an outpost on the Taza front.32 At Tazouta he struck up a friendship with the utterly dissimilar Captain Laffite of the goumiers, a squat, coarse-mannered 42-year-old Breton adventurer. A mysterious pre-war past as a mercenary in the Balkans and elsewhere had led him, like Bournazel, to the trenches in the ranks of a dismounted hussar regiment; also commissioned from the battlefield, he had ended the war as a captain, with the ribbons of the Légion d’Honneur and the Croix de Guerre, and with no fewer than twelve citations. Independent command of a gang of half-tamed Berber bandits in legalized tribal warfare suited Laffite perfectly, and his audacity and cunning had already made him a legend in these hills.33
Major Nicolas of III/3rd REI, then 43 years old, had spent most of his pre-war career with the 1st Foreign before transferring to the Line in 1914. Wounded three times, he had returned to the Legion as Lieutenant-Colonel Rollet’s second-in-command in the RMLE in September 1918; he was thus deeply – perhaps exhaustingly – experienced in both colonial and European warfare. His most senior company commander was in fact three years older than him; Captain Maire, another Breton, had languished for years as a Line subaltern before transferring to the 2nd Foreign in June 1914. After sticking it out in Morocco for the first half of the war, he had distinguished himself with III/RMLE at Auberive in 1917 and in the Hindenburg Line the following year. Tall and burly with a big black moustache, Fernand Maire was loud, fearless, ruthless, and (to judge from his memoir) a man of unreflective outlook, but he seemed to suit légionnaires.34
THE THOUSAND-MAN BATTALION of 1914, in four big companies of riflemen moving en masse (and supported by just two machine guns that nobody really knew how to employ) was long forgotten. The cruel lessons of the Western Front had created a leaner, more supple model; companies and platoons were trained to operate individually – though in close articulation – by alternate fire and movement, and junior leaders down to squad sergeant had to be able to think for themselves. In Morocco, the battalion of the early 1920s had a theoretical establishment of 700 men in three rifle companies and a separate machine-gun company.35
Each rifle company was supposed to have 170 men, divided into a command group and four platoons each of 35 men led by a subaltern or warrant officer, and each platoon was made up of three squads of about 11 men led by a sergeant. Two of the squads in each platoon were riflemen (grenadiers-voltigeurs), and one was based on a light machine gun (fusilmitrailleur – hereafter, LMG); in Morocco, unlike France, this LMG squad had just one instead of three of the infamous Chauchats. Each of the platoon’s three squads included a man equipped with a VB rifle-grenade discharger, and hand grenades were available to all.36 While this increased firepower gave the battalion and company greater tactical flexibility than in 1914, it also added considerably to the physical burdens. Apart from the obviously ponderous machine-gun company, LMGs and VB-dischargers were voracious devourers of ammunition; it all had to be carried in the front line, and soldiers were loaded down with immediate-use supplies.
The bataillon d’infanterie type marocain was essentially an alpine unit, and each rifle company incorporated its own ‘combat train’ of eleven mules carrying ammunition, water, tools, concertina-coils of barbed wire (reseaux Brun), stretchers and cacolets. Nine more company mules carried the rations and baggage; these stayed with the assembled battalion train, along with the company’s quartermaster and cooks. The point of these perhaps wearying details is that each company commander had to allocate a sergeant with at least
16 mule-drivers to the train – more, in really mountainous country – thus reducing the number of rifles in the company’s firing line, which theoretically had 145 plus the 4 LMGs. Given that few battalions in the 1920s actually achieved a strength of more than 600 men and many only 500, the company in battle might have only 100 – 120 men instead of 170, and in broken terrain this was too few for safety. On the morning of 6 May 1922, when Major Nicolas led III/3rd Foreign out of the camp at Skoura, he had three rifle companies totalling only 253 men.37
NICOLAS WAS LEADING THE VANGUARD for a push towards the Taddoute plateau several miles east of Skoura, preceded by Laffite’s 20th Goum scouting ahead on ponies. It took the battalion 45 minutes to climb the steep 500-foot Tizi Adni pass, and once they reached its head they relied entirely on the guidance of Laffite’s goumiers; the iron-filled rocks confuse any compass, and even today there are no reliable maps of the Tichoukt massif. A couple of miles immediately east of the head of the Tizi Adni the terrain becomes chaotic, and it would have been extraordinarily difficult for III/3rd REI to reach the Taddoute plateau against any kind of opposition. However, although Captain Maire’s memoir describes this vertiginous landscape, in fact the timing suggests that the battalion were stopped dead before even reaching it.
Adopting a fighting formation was extremely difficult on such ground. The manuals called for the marching column to deploy when about 800 yards from the enemy; the files were to wheel out sideways into a firing line across the route of advance, with trailing wings to watch the flanks and a reserve following behind. This was just about possible if a unit was advancing at right-angles to the gulleys and crests, stumbling down one slope and panting up the next, but that was both exhausting and dreadfully slow. In Morocco the priority was to close with the enemy quickly rather than to get the maximum firepower into the line; although a file of men made a more vulnerable target than a line, the tribesmen had no heavy weapons, so bunching was usually less of a danger than deploying too widely and becoming separated by terrain features.
The standard formation for advancing along the length of a feature was for each company to form a ‘lozenge’. The lead platoon spread its LMG squad across the track in line, with the other two squads trailing back from its ends in files to form a three-sided box or blunt arrowhead, followed by the company commander’s group. Two more platoons followed in parallel files on the flanks, guarding the mule train between them, and the fourth platoon brought up the rear in a reversed arrowhead of three parallel squad files. In theory the battalion’s second company could do the same on a neighbouring height to one or other flank, with the third following in reserve. In practice, the terrain governed everything, and the single company was the ‘unit of manoeuvre’; it had to be prepared to advance alone, defending its own flanks.38
At about 7am on 6 May 1922, Major Nicolas’ cramped little battalion were warned by the sound of shots and the retreating goumiers of an apparently strong tribal force ahead, occupying a tongue of wooded ground climbing a fairly modest slope. He deployed two companies forward, the 10th on the left and the 9th on its right, with the 12th held back in reserve.39 As his légionnaires advanced they came under immediate heavy fire, from a determined enemy who used the cover and the ground with their usual skill.
In simple language, this means that the soldiers hardly ever saw who was firing at them; now often armed with smokeless-powder rifles that left no tell-tale white puff to locate them, groups of Berbers among the rocks and holly-oaks showed themselves very briefly before disappearing, only to reappear in unexpected places, usually much closer than expected. Once combat was joined in lumpy, wooded country like this, the formal dance-diagrams of the manual could offer only vague guidelines. Company and platoon commanders, who controlled by voice and whistle from close behind the centre of their firing lines, needed constant vigilance above all else, married to a tactical instinct for ground and instant decisive reactions. Although battalion commanders usually controlled their units in person from close behind the leading companies, those companies still relied upon quick-thinking officers and sergeants; as already mentioned, the French Army of the 1920s did not practise ‘battle drills’ to trigger all ranks into instinctive responses at first contact. The Berbers did not give junior leaders the luxury of much time to think, and the man with the coloured képi and Sam Browne belt was a priority target.40
The fact that many tribesmen now had modern rifles naturally had an impact on French tactics: their greater accuracy forced wider dispersal of the troops, but dispersal had its limits if ground was to be held effectively. A company could cover no more than 300 yards of front with three of its platoons in line, so that each man was only about two paces from his mates on either side. Each platoon formed with its LMG squad in the centre, and to retain the initiative platoons had to keep moving ahead, constantly alternating between bounds forward and pauses to cover each other by shooting. Any halt other than to deliver a rapid fusillade encouraged the Berbers to concentrate their own fire, pinning the platoon down and creating a static target towards which the tribesmen were instinctively drawn. Any isolation, perceived weakness or hesitant ‘floating’ invited that rush from cover at close quarters that veterans described as being ‘of unimaginable violence’. On 6 May the half-strength III/3rd REI lost the initiative, were brought to a halt and pinned down, and paid a price for it.41
Captain Duchier’s 9th Company came under the heaviest pressure, from the front and right flank, and were forced to fall back; Duchier took them forward again with the bayonet and recaptured the lost ground, but at some cost. (Despite the earlier remarks about bayonet-versus-knife fighting, it was whichever side showed the most aggression that had the essential advantage. On the receiving end of a determined bayonet-charge the Berbers, like any other fighting men, would themselves ‘float’, and this tactic – if exactly timed, and carried out with real resolve – was successfully employed often enough for veteran officers to regard it as a panacea against any threat within 100 yards.) Following this episode, half of 12th Company were sent forward to support the weakened 9th; the Moroccans eased their direct pressure, but kept up extremely heavy fire all along the line. Laffite’s mounted Goum pulled back down the pass to Skoura to try to find a way around a flank and up into the hills behind the tribesmen, but they themselves ran into another strong force and were halted with losses.42 At about 9am, orders came up for Nicolas to simply hold his position until other units could climb the pass behind him with artillery and machine guns. The tired major’s heart may have sunk on receiving an order that seemed to betray a carelessness of how this sort of encounter could develop.
Although mules with more water, ammunition and cacolets were sent up to them, the actual relief took what seems to have been an inexplicably long time. Whatever the reason, the fighting continued all through the morning and afternoon, with Nicolas’ small companies being whittled away by casualties, and the tribesmen exploiting forwards under cover to try to pick their perimeters apart wherever opportunity offered. At last, at about 5pm, orders arrived to prepare for retreat when the guns that were now reaching the head of the pass began to deliver covering fire. The Moroccans spotted and correctly interpreted these preparations, and minimized their danger by pressing forward to ‘hang on the Frenchman’s belt’, infiltrating between Legion platoons on both flanks. The order to begin disengaging was given, and Major Nicolas took the wounded and the rest of the mule train back about 600 yards, leaving Captain Maire in command of the three companies.
When the first couple of shells burst among the rocks above, Maire ordered the firing line to fall back, but the moment that 9th Company began to ‘unhook itself’ a crowd of Berbers swarmed over them in a headlong rush. Captain Duchier was shot dead; his whole company gave way, and 10th Company, finding their right flank open, were infected by this disorder. Maire and his rearguard half-company were uncovered and virtually surrounded, and only broke out with great difficulty through a narrowing gap by halting every 50 yard
s to face about and deliver rapid fire (Maire claimed that at one point he had to defend himself with his walking-stick). This was the scenario that all Berber warriors longed for, and the retreat of III/3rd Foreign involved hand-to-hand fighting on both flanks. The three mauled companies seem to have had to rely almost entirely upon their own firepower to hold back the pursuit; they had been fighting for more than ten hours, they were burdened with their most recent wounded, and each time a platoon paused to fire they fell further behind, increasing the flanking tribesmens’ chances of cutting the last avenue of escape.
Eventually they reached the cover provided by Skirmisher battalions advancing on each side of them, and at about 9pm the battalion got down the pass to the camps around Skoura. The day had cost them 99 casualties – 40 per cent of their strength: 17 known killed, 64 wounded and 18 missing (their bones would be discovered the following year). In his report of 10 June, Major Nicolas paid generous tribute to Captain Maire’s effective command of the battalion; he himself suffered a mental collapse soon afterwards, and was evacuated to Fes on 1 August.43
On 12 May, when the Decherf Group took another 150 casualties less than 3 miles from Skoura, the attempted eastward advance to Taddoute was abandoned. On the 28th, Sidi Raho led some 1,500 mixed tribesmen in attacks on troops working on the road from Tazouta to Skoura, and on the latter camp. In the first week of July he attacked a convoy to Skoura; it only fought its way through after taking 70 killed and 80 wounded in a seven-hour action. The French decided that Skoura was, for the time being, untenable, and withdrew. The remnants of III/3rd REI did well in one of the convoy-escort actions of mid-May, but the battalion would be left in static post garrisons for nearly two years thereafter.44
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