Our Friends Beneath the Sands

  Captain Prince Aage was then serving on Marshal Lyautey’s staff at Rabat. At dinner on 2 May a cable arrived from General Chambrun in Fes reporting that Cambay Force around Kifane had been beaten back and that Colombat Force was taking heavy losses, and requesting permission to withdraw all the posts north of the Ouergha at his own judgement. Lyautey refused, and ordered his staff to prepare for a move to Fes the next day. On their arrival they learned that twelve infantry battalions and artillery were promised from Algeria, but that these could not be expected for another two weeks.19

  ON MONDAY 4 MAY the 6th Battalion, 1st Foreign formed the vanguard of Freydenberg Force as it marched north from Ain Aicha to relieve a group of posts on the 2,000-foot ridge of Taounate. This series of summits stretches for about miles along a north-south feature above the Oued Sra, a northern tributary of the Ouergha, and from its heights some 1,500 Berbers surrounding the posts dominated the entrances to two important valleys. Screened by the usual partisan irregulars, the VI/1st advanced from west to east through fields of tall grain; when they were about miles from the ridge they heard the irregulars in action, and these soon fell back. The Cazaban Battalion received their first shots as they approached the slopes of the ridge at about 8am, and after a brief artillery preparation they were ordered to attack the heights across a front of about 800 yards.

  Major Jean Cazaban, who was then 43 years old, had arrived at the 1st Foreign in 1910. After four years as a lieutenant on the Moulouya front he had been among those who transferred to the Metropolitan Army on the outbreak of the Great War. He had spent four years on the Western Front with the 18th Line Infantry, during which time he collected three wounds and seven citations. He brought his accumulated experience back to the Legion in 1924 to take command of VI/1st REI; a photo of the time shows a trim, hawk-faced officer with an unsmiling expression, and Corporal Cooper wrote that he was not a commander who made any attempt to court popularity. However, he was both decisive and competent; his correspondence over the following weeks shows concern for the growing exhaustion of his ‘glorious rogues, sashed with blue’, while he would work himself half to death during recurring bouts of dysentery.20

  A man of Cazaban’s background could organize this kind of textbook assault in his sleep. From left to right, he deployed 23rd Company (Captain Depesseville), 21st (Villiers Moramé) and 22nd (Pechkoff ), each in line with trailing files on the flanks and each followed by its combat mule-train; behind the centre company Cazaban followed with his command group, including his bugler, runners, artillery-spotters and semaphore signallers with red-and-white flags. Captain Billaud’s 24th Company was in reserve, about 300 yards behind the assault companies and ready to shore up a weakness, exploit a success or extend the line on either flank; the battalion mule-train stayed well in the rear.21 The slopes were a mixture of rough grassland broken up by patches of trees and rocks, and terraced plots surrounding several small hamlets, all of it offering the tribesmen good cover.

  As the légionnaires advanced up the slopes they could hear the whooping of the Berber women encouraging their men – ‘you-you-you-you-you . . .’; the intensity of the firing increased, and men began to fall. Captain Villiers Moramé took a bullet in the thigh but kept command of his central company, which became pinned down in rocks half way up the hillside; the 23rd Company on its left were a little behind, the 22nd on its right a little ahead. There is a large gulley running diagonally down the slope from top left to bottom centre; presumably Captain Pechkoff’s men were climbing the uninterrupted slope to the south of this, while it presented an obstacle to the centre and left companies.22 The battalion paused to catch its breath, and Major Cazaban called in a few more rounds of artillery on a troublesome group of buildings. Pechkoff’s company took cover around a derelict walled hamlet, and as soon as their advance halted the Berbers became more aggressive, darting forwards to fire before disappearing into cover again to work around to a flank:With my liaison men, the stretcher-bearers and officers I installed myself in an abandoned kasbah. . . . We set up our machine guns, holding under our fire the slope . . . with its terraces of fenced gardens and houses . . . soon the kasbah was full of men with shattered legs and arms or wounds in the chest, stomach or head. Our first-aid men and stretcher-bearers risked their lives many times to bring in their maimed comrades. The Legion was eager to go forward. We knew by experience that the longer we waited the more difficult it would be to attain our objective.

  Eventually the battalion’s eight machine guns were concentrated in a single battery and given new targets (perhaps a sign that the Western Front veteran Cazaban was among those who were uncomfortable with the new four-company structure with dispersed MG platoons). At about 2pm the bugles sounded ‘Advance!’, and the companies resumed their climb upwards and eastwards. Pechkoff describes them trudgingslowly, steadily, unwaveringly, and as far as the eye could reach we saw our men going on and on, climbing the rocks, falling, climbing again, all of them in order . . . We passed a [large] village on our right . . . The place was searched and not a soul was found, but there were a lot of sheep and fowl wandering about the courtyards . . . Before leaving [the légionnaires] stored up chickens in their haversacks . . . for the evening meal.

  Major Cazaban sent Baillaud’s 24th Company slanting up southward behind Pechkoff’s 22nd, to extend its front to the right as it reached the crest at around 2.30pm. With this support on the high ground to his right, Villiers Moramé climbed to the centre of the feature, followed by Depesseville’s company on his left; by 3pm the whole ridge was in French hands, and the Moroccan Skirmishers besieged in the strongly walled post and its satellites had been relieved. The battalion’s casualties were 11 killed and 53 wounded – about 10 per cent.23 (The order and discipline with which the Legion manoeuvred under fire is mentioned admiringly by a number of observers, but it had its drawbacks in Morocco. A multilingual force necessarily had to be trained by example and repetition, and this instilled a certain inflexibility.24 More suppleness was needed when fighting a guerrilla enemy, and a number of units – including Cazaban’s – formed groupe francs or ‘free platoons’ of picked men for patrols, counter-infiltration and night actions.)

  The next morning the mobile group made a two-hour march south to establish a large defended camp on the Gara de Mezziat, a broad conical feature giving good fields of fire for defence, and views up and down the Ouergha valley.25 At 2.30am on 6 May, the VI/1st Foreign were roused to form the vanguard for a column to withdraw the garrison from the post of Bab Ouender, marching north-east up the valley ‘in the bright light of the full moon’. They remained at the foot of the hill while a Moroccan battalion climbed to the post; after hours of delay Major Cazaban was informed that the Skirmishers would spend the night there, so his unit, now providing the rearguard, could only start back for Gara de Mezziat in the late afternoon. Predictably, they were closely followed (as every retreating rearguard would be, throughout this campaign), and the difficulty of telling partisans from enemies in the failing light led to further delays. Immediately after the rearguard reached camp the perimeter was attacked in some strength, and during this confused firefight in the darkness Captain Pechkoff heard incoming machine-gun fire and grenades. The Cazaban Battalion lost 5 dead and 11 wounded, and the flanks of Pechkoff’s pale horse were streaked with the blood of a casualty he had lifted into his saddle. Corporal Cooper believed that some Rifians actually got inside the camp, leading to ‘friendly fire’ casualties.26 On that same 6 May, 18 miles to the west, the tiny garrison at Ourtzagh – little more than a hastily fortified shepherd’s hut – surrendered, and when a patrol reached the site on the 13th they found the bodies of Sergeant Joandet and his 17 Senegalese grossly mutilated. That night Mghala post was abandoned, leaving Aoulai isolated.27

  ON 9 MAY, PARTISANS proved their worth when Captain Mège’s Beni Ouarain relieved Ain Maatouf, while VI/1st REI resupplied the airstrip camp at Mediouna. (Events contradicted intelligence predictions about the relative loyalty of so
me tribes; some contingents of the generally hostile Beni Ouarain and Ait Segrushin fought for the French, while some trusted clans rebelled.) That day Lyautey’s headquarters issued a communiqué claiming that ‘the situation is neither grave nor disquieting’. Freydenberg Force then moved westwards to the posts of Astar, Amzez and Taleghza above the Oueds Sahela and Axmer; on 15 May, Taleghza would be abandoned, Amzez came under shellfire and Taounate and other posts were assaulted. The Rifians’ need to divide their modest force of serviceable artillery between the Tetuan, Ouergha, Kifane and Melilla fronts limited its use, as did the difficulty of moving guns and shells over the mountain trails by mule, but where they did get into action they were shockingly effective against the drystone defences of the posts, which the Berbers could usually hit by ‘walking’ shells across the ground until they got the range. A post at Bou Halima was one of several destroyed when the magazine was hit.28

  On 12 May the first company of West African reinforcements reached Tafrant, and the next day Colombat Force mounted a resupply operation to Bibane, which had been signalling appeals for ice drops; Sergeant Bernez-Cambot had 11 wounded among his 30 surviving men. It was only 3 miles along the trail from Tafrant, but it took General Colombat six hours – and flanking operations by cavalry, aircraft and partisans – to fight his central column of three battalions up the steep, rocky slopes behind a rolling artillery barrage, and through two rings of Berber trenches facing outwards and inwards. Hardcore Ait Waryaghar fighters had been reported here for the past month; Rifian machine guns stopped first one, then a second unit, and Colombat had to commit his reserve battalion in order to break through – this was emphatically nothing like any tribal campaign the French had ever fought before. When they reached the battered, roofless post the column exchanged ammunition, rations and water for Bernez-Cambot’s casualties; although wounded in the neck and thigh, he himself refused to leave, so Colombat left him Lieutenant-Colonel Fèral’s sappers to help restore his defences and was gone within three hours. (One of the casualties that day was a Legion officer, Captain Marc Volokhoff of 3rd REI, a Russian veteran of the Western Front who had qualified as a pilot in 1917 and was now detached to 37th Air Observation Regiment. Flying a Breguet 14 on low-level bombing missions over Bibane on 13 May, he was wounded by ground fire, and cited for his second gallantry decoration.)29

  On 13 – 15 May, one of Colombat’s assets was half of II/2nd REI (Major Goret), newly arrived from the Atlas, which fought in the relief of Bibane and Aoulai. Part of Colombat Force also resupplied Dar Remich, where Sergeants Peron and Fontaine and their 15 Senegalese had run out of water four days previously; the failure of a party sent out to try to reach a spring was advertised by the corpse of a Skirmisher dangling by his heels from a tree 100 yards outside the perimeter. In the Moroccan summer a man needed at least 3 litres of water daily, but in some posts this had to be reduced to half a litre, and rations of hard tack and tinned meat aggravated thirst. (In this dry heat a man hardly sweats, and when dehydrated he only urinates perhaps every second day. The saliva thickens and tastes foul, the tongue is glued to the palate, the throat feels clogged, both speech and – oddly – hearing become difficult, there are severe head and neck pains, and some men begin to hallucinate.) Again, Dar Remich was simply given water, ammunition and 20 days’ rations and left to hang on as best it could.30

  ON 21 MAY THE CAZABAN BATTALION left Gara de Mezziat as part of a Freydenberg Force mission to evacuate and destroy a group of posts about 7 miles north-east up the Ouergha valley – Srima, Bou Adel, Bab Djenane and Sidi Ahmet.31 This country had once been thickly populated but was now abandoned; Corporal Cooper recalled passing through villages rich with olive groves, orange and fig trees and seeing ‘not a soul, not a chicken, not a dog in the homesteads, where the hearths were cold but there was no debris indicating a hasty departure – it seemed to be a deliberate evacuation’. At Srima they found an Algerian sergeant and 4 survivors with the bodies of 14 dead; they came under fire from hills above, and lost 2 men killed before blowing up the post and marching on to Bou Adel to await instructions. From a hilltop Pechkoff watched Moroccan troops wrecking and evacuating the main post of Sidi Ahmet on the next height, and Cooper, being experienced with explosives, was assigned to a demolition team. Each pair of men with a short crowbar and a sledgehammer drilled a hole in hard ground at a corner of the fort to take a stick charge, detonator and ‘Bickford cord’ time fuse, while the other men piled up nearby all the ammunition and rations that could not be carried away.

  When the charges were blown the légionnaires set off towards the Ouergha crossing in carefree spirits, and had stopped for a rest at the top of a steep wooded hill just over a mile from Bou Adel when ‘one of the men from the rear came pelting up and said [the Berbers] were almost upon us’. Cooper wrote that the usual leap-frogging retreat by alternate companies broke down, and that as large numbers of tribesmen appeared on their right ‘the men and even the officers lost their heads. The men and the machine guns tumbled down the steep slope in a panic. I happened to be beside Major Cazaban, so I stuck close, reckoning that I couldn’t go wrong if I stayed with him’. Captain Pechkoff, whose 22nd Company had been left as rearguard with orders to hold their position until they saw the last elements crossing the river, describes a more orderly fighting retreat:After the smoke [of demolition] disappeared we saw groups of men clad in white and grey burnouses roaming around . . . these groups increased in number as the minutes passed. I saw clearly that the retreat would be most difficult. Here we were, left almost alone; we had to form our own flanks and our own rearguard . . . When the other troops were about to cross the river I began to send all the mules [with the wounded and the machine guns] back. The descent from this mountain was abrupt and precipitous . . . I counted on the swiftness of my men, depending only on their rifles and hand grenades to make our way through . . . When I saw that my heavy material and animals were reaching the river I ordered the men to retreat. But no sooner did we leave the strategic points that we were occupying than we heard the enemy yelling . . . quite near. They came at us from all sides. I did not stop the movement. Our rearguard was formed of picked men . . . who had proven themselves to be the most level-headed.

  Pechkoff placed his rearguard concealed among the olive trees, and held their fire until the first pursuers were at close range; then he blew his whistle to unleash a volley, followed by a violent charge that won the company a little time to withdraw. However, they were still under fire all the way down to the last ridge that had to be crossed before they reached the river, and the légionnaires had to take turns carrying the wounded on their backs. On the last down-slope they were hampered by thick trees that covered attacks from behind and both flanks. Half Pechkoff’s company were across the river when he and the last two platoons were cut off and surrounded; one of his runners got through to the leading peloton, which turned and waded back to extricate him. When the company finally began to cross together they saw that Berbers were also wading the river on either side of them, and looked certain to reach the far bank before they did:Nothing remained for us to do but to stop and fight, standing there [armpitdeep] in the water . . . ‘Fire!’ was ordered. The men raised their rifles, and platoons on the left and right [opened fire] at the Rifians. They were amazed . . . Some of them started to go back. Many fell. Only a few replied to our fire . . . Thanks to the courage and discipline of the men we succeeded in getting across.32

  As Freydenberg’s brigade continued this operation the following day, Captain Depesseville’s 23rd Company, VI/1st REI had men killed and wounded by the mistaken bombing of Amzou village by French aircraft. After a hard withdrawal, the battalion was harassed in its camp at Srima that night, and Lieutenant Fain of 21st Company took 10 men out on a grenade raid, which proved successful. (The sortie was heavily oversubscribed by eager volunteers, and may have given young Fain and his légionnaires a taste for this sort of thing that would prove fatal a couple of weeks later.) The day had cost Cazaban 5 k
illed, 7 missing and 29 wounded.33

  AFTER PUNISHING AN INCAUTIOUS Rifian advance on 15 May, the Bibane garrison enjoyed a relative respite while their defences were strengthened, and a sortie on the 18th destroyed some Berber trenches. On 23 May Captain Pietri managed to reach them, and was conferring with Bernez-Cambot when Sergeant Peron at Dar Remich signalled that about 100 Berbers ‘and some Europeans’ were installing a cannon on a height to his north-east. That afternoon four shells fell at Bibane and two more at Dar Remich; Pietri gave permission for Peron and Fontaine to withdraw their squad inside Bibane that night. On the night of 24/25 May, Sergeant Fontaine was killed during a five-hour attack on Bibane by up to 2,000 Berbers, and about 20 shells were fired at the post.34 Lieutenant-Colonel Feral’s Engineers would soon finish their work there and had to return to Tafrant, as did two units of Skirmishers that had been left lower down the hillsides when Colombat pulled back on 15 May. The operation on 25 May to recover them and resupply the Bibane garrison once more would earn one Legion officer particular respect.