Major Marcel Deslandes had entered St Maixent as a 25-year-old Line sergeant in 1909. Commissioned into the 162nd Infantry two years later, he was wounded four times and earned five gallantry citations during the Great War. After transferring to the Legion he took command of II/1st REI based at Géryville in October 1921. Private Charles Ziegler arrived at that dreary post in February 1925, and recalled that Deslandes was a tireless conductor of tactical exercises. Slogging over the high plains with a machine gun on his shoulder, Ziegler did not realize how valuable the major’s insistent lectures on ‘unhooking under fire’ would prove. He recalled the pipe-smoking Deslandes as a solid, reassuring presence, demanding but always just, who led by example like the sergeant he had once been.
On 6 May 1925, the 2nd Battalion of 1st Foreign departed for the Rif front; they made a four-day march over the plains in full packs ‘to get them in shape’ before they met their trains, and by the 19th of the month they were at Ain Defali, drawing ammunition and rations and sending their knapsacks and khaki wool winter uniforms back to stores. On 23 – 24 May they marched east to the flea-ridden ruins of Fes el Bali and the base camp of Colombat Force, beside the red-brown river meandering through fields of grain and poppies. Ziegler was struck by the green of the Ouergha valley after the dead ochre of the Algerian high plains.35 The view to the north was dominated by the hulking shape of Bibane, and another man gazing thoughtfully up at it was Captain Prince Aage, now serving on the Colombat Force staff. On the evening of 24 May, a signal warned Féral that Colonel Naugés would bring 2,000 troops to break through and pull his sappers out the following morning.
CROSSING THE BRIDGE before dawn, by 6.30am Aage was at the jumping-off point for the left flank unit in a dip below the southern slope of Bibane. Morning mist hid the first Rifian trenches about 300 yards above them, but the opening of the artillery barrage was the signal for the infantry to advance and Aage followed, in a ‘sort of coma’ at the noise. He only realized that enemy machine guns were replying when he began to pass groups of French casualties. As the Algerian turcos reached the first trench, mistimed French airbursts killed friend and foe together, and Aage sent several runners back to warn the batteries, but by the time the barrage lifted Rifian machine guns were pinning down any further advance. They were sweeping the slope from a low, thick-walled stone building to the left front; the artillery seemed unable to silence it, and grenade parties had no more success. The advance was also stalled on the right; a Senegalese unit was committed in support of the Algerians, but as the morning wore on the casualties mounted with little progress made.
The Deslandes Battalion had started the day in reserve, but at around noon they were called forwards and ordered to assault straight ahead. They advanced in line to the sound of bugles, with two companies ‘up’ – 7th on the left, 5th on the right – followed by 6th and 8th respectively, with Major Deslandes’ command group close behind the trailing inside flank files at the junction of the two lead companies. Bibane is a major feature several thousand yards wide from east to west, its broad slopes scattered with hamlets wherever anything can be coaxed to grow. The terrain on the south is steep and broken by clusters of rocks offering ideal cover, and in 1925 it was defended by piled stone ‘blockhouses’ and well-disguised trenches, their approaches protected by abatis of thorny Barbary figs almost as effective as barbed wire. Under a blazing sun and heavy fire from small arms and machine guns, the lead companies of II/1st Foreign fought their way upwards, but were repeatedly checked – one account speaks of seven distinct attempts.
Accounts of famous charges are always romanticized, but what seems to have happened is that at some point the battalion were pinned down by fire from a trench approximately 50 yards ahead; officer casualties had been heavy, and Deslandes had (according to one source) only seven others still on their feet. The major called them to him, told each to get himself a haversack of grenades, and explained that they were going to take the trench in Great War style. Taking his place in the centre with his own satchel of grenades, he spaced the officers along the line; at Deslandes’ whistle-blast they surged forwards, hurling grenades, dropping, then springing up again to dash forward and throw another. Their men leapt up to follow them, and in perhaps half a minute they had reached the Berber trench to clear it hand-to-hand. (If they could lay hands on one, the légionnaires preferred to use a captured Mauser bayonet as a dagger rather than relying on the fragile needle-bayonet of the Lebel.)
The battalion then came under heavy enfilade fire from Rifians who were dug in on a hillock to their right flank, and Colombat’s other Legion unit – Major Goret’s two-company detachment from II/2nd REI – was sent against this. Perhaps inspired by Deslandes’ example, Captain Demart of its 6th Company made an ill-judged attempt after only a few rounds of artillery preparation, and he and many of his men were shot down as soon as they left cover. The semaphore signallers flagged a request for more artillery before 7th Company tried a rush in their turn, but they too were pinned down (the supply of shells to the Rif front line was inadequate, and ammunition always had to be husbanded). Prince Aage reported the situation to General Colombat; after a further barrage a final effort was made at about 1.30pm, and soon afterwards uncoordinated Rifian withdrawals allowed the French to reach the post on the summit.
Typically, their own withdrawal through the grainfields to Tafrant that evening – leaving Bernez-Cambot on his hilltop with just 6 other Frenchmen and 47 Senegalese – was stubbornly contested, and had to be covered by artillery fire and four squadrons of Spahis. The operation had cost Colombat Force more than 100 killed and 300 wounded (Prince Aage actually reckoned the total at 500). From a strength of 500 committed, Major Stephani’s 19th Algerian Marching Battalion had lost 132 all ranks including a company commander and 5 lieutenants; Marcel Deslandes’ légionnaires had suffered 60 casualties, and the only two companies of the Goret Battalion lost 67 killed and wounded. In all, the repeated battles to sustain Bibane during May had by now cost more than 400 French killed and between two and three times that many wounded.36
LYAUTEY STILL HAD NOT RECEIVED any substantial reinforcements, and was wary of meeting the pressure in the north by stripping the interior garrisons any further; his great fear was that the infection might spread to the Atlas (though in the event the tribes on the Khenifra front became restless only during that autumn). The political litmus paper was Fes; there the ever-querulous business community might celebrate Abd el Krim’s victories in the coffee-houses, but in fact they would far rather deal with Lyautey’s regime than with a stern cadi from the northern mountains.37
Nevertheless, the cost to Chambrun’s mobile groups of maintaining the posts north of the Ouergha was becoming prohibitive. On 26 May, the garrisons of five more were withdrawn and the Rifians promptly flowed forwards into the gaps, further imperilling those that remained. At Ain Maatouf, east of Ain Aicha, in the vulnerable margin where Henri Freydenberg’s and Albert Cambay’s responsibilities met, Sergeant Magnien of 9th Company, 1st RTSM had already been killed, and Private 2nd Class Berger was leading the defence of this lonely hilltop, its lifeline to the west threatened by a glowering rock cathedral overlooking the fort from about 1,000 yards away. On 30 May the platoon was withdrawn; Berger was awarded the Médaille Militaire, but he and his Senegalese were simply transferred to reinforce Warrant Officer Chrétien of 5th Company at Kouba post, where they would be wiped out a month later. With Ait Maatouf gone and the main camp of Freydenberg Force now at Gara de Mezziat, the French boys of Major Blachère’s II/RICM at Ain Aicha were judged to be too isolated, and were ordered south to Tissa. During their night march on the 31st they fell into an ambush at Ouled Daoud; Lieutenants Pagnard and Bertet died with at least 30 of their men, and 37 more were wounded.38
WHILE THE GARRISONS of the Tafrant group of posts withstood repeated attacks in the last week of May, a new threat to Ouezzane in the north-west distracted General Colombat’s attention. Close to the zonal border with the Djibala, posts n
orth and east of this vital anchor point were coming under attack from a new 3,000-strong harka led by Abd el Krim’s regional general, the young Ahmed Heriro.39 The overstretched Colombat now had to deploy troops to block these approaches to the rich plains north-west of Fes, and one of the units was II/1st REI, sent west only two days after its ordeal at Bibane. The Deslandes Battalion reached Ouezzane on 31 May, and Charles Ziegler was in the ranks of 8th Company as they struggled painfully through the last baking gorge under their heavy packs:Worn out, shattered, with parched throats, we covered the last few kilometres; men and animals alike were at the end of their strength in the torrid heat. With feverish eyes, the officers tried to find some word, some gesture to lift the morale of their men. Mules collapsed and could not be got back on their feet. What a brilliant idea to set us on the march from Teroual at noon, loaded down like beasts in 50 degrees in the shade! [122°F] . . . The last few minutes seemed like an eternity.
A domed shrine appeared on the right; then, up there on the left, pinkywhite amid the olive groves, Ouezzane . . . What an enchantment! The white road alongside a clear, tinkling stream led us into one of the most charming little towns to be found in Morocco. Pretty red-roofed houses, in a style mixing the Arab with the Spanish taste, rose up the terraced slope . . . in little gardens full of vegetables and fruit trees of all kinds. From the entrance to the town one can see the whole tableau at one glance, a masterpiece set against the dark green of the olive groves, its inhabitants going peacefully about their business . . .
On 1 June the battalion marched north to resupply the border posts on the upper Loukos river – Brikcha, Ouled Allal and Rihana. At first they saw no action, simply the usual interminable panting up and down hills to picket the convoy routes, and in his brief off-duty hours Ziegler found that a cool, shady tavern in Ouezzane had rather more to offer than the verminous villages of the Ouergha valley:In the square a big sign identifies the Hôtel et Café de France, a two-storey Spanish-style estaminet. In the corner of the room is the band – a violin, two guislas and a few tambourines – and in the middle of the floor dances the lovely young Ourida, dressed only in a simple veil. Repetitive, rhythmic, in perfect harmony – it is a delight to watch her.40
WHILE LÉGIONNAIRE ZIEGLER was enjoying a rare genuine taste of what the recruiting posters had cynically promised, in Paris the political classes were vociferously divided, but Prime Minister Paul Painlevé (who also held the War Ministry portfolio) had clearly understood the need to stop Abd el Krim militarily before there could be any question of diplomacy. He endorsed Lyautey’s calls for significant reinforcements from the Ruhr, though not his request on 4 May for poison gas shells; he also ignored the marshal’s continued reluctance to liaise with the Spanish, and sent envoys to Madrid on 14 May for extended talks. These examples seem to cast doubt on Lyautey’s judgement both tactical and strategic, particularly his apparent wish to limit French operations strictly to his side of the now meaningless zonal borderline. Lyautey reported on 25 May that he had appointed General Albert Daugan from Marrakesh to command of the Northern Front; Daugan’s operations chief would be General Gaston Bilotte, and General Chambrun was demoted to control of political affairs.41
On 4 June the prime minister reported to parliament that French casualties in the first six weeks’ fighting were 1,628 men killed, missing and wounded, adding – unattractively – that 60 per cent of these were native troops.42 He faced a restless Chamber, and some Communists were even publicly congratulating Abd el Krim for his anti-imperialist victories. Throughout the summer the government felt a need to massage the facts for French and overseas public consumption; casualty figures were understated, and there is an unmistakably Clintonesque care over the exact choice of words in Chambrun’s statement at the end of May that only ‘four fortifications of 40 built in 1924 were then in enemy hands’.
While Lyautey’s staff were being shuffled, the movement of Colombat’s battalions westwards was overstretching, in its turn, Freydenberg’s defence of the central Ouergha. Mhamed Abd el Krim took advantage of this unbalancing of the French front to send strong forces across the river between Ain Aicha and Kelaa des Sless; they thrust southwards into Fichtala and Hayana tribal territory, where they would disturb the approaches to Fes for much of June. Their overture was the capture on 2 June of the post of Astar, and it was decided that with that dominating hilltop in Berber hands, the fort at Sker, a mile or so up the Oued Sra valley to the north-east, was no longer defensible.
The withdrawal of Sker’s garrison would require several of Freydenberg’s units, and that chosen to provide high cover by temporarily reoccupying Astar on 4 June was the VI/1st REI. Over the previous ten days Major Cazaban’s battalion had been marching out daily from Gara de Mezziat to relieve and resupply posts on the Oued Sahela and Sra. The countryside was completely insecure, but although they had suffered some sniping, and Rifian guns at Taleghza had dropped shells close enough to shower Cooper’s and Pechkoff’s companies with dirt, they had not seen serious combat since Bou Adel – on 2 June they actually had a rest day. The following afternoon they were marched up to Taounate with two Skirmisher battalions and four artillery batteries ready for an early start the next morning. It would be an operation of no particular significance, but it stands for dozens of others fought that summer. It was hastily prepared, in unavoidable ignorance of the opposition; the resources provided were adequate on paper, but an important part of the plan failed (as plans nearly always do under the pressure of events); it was successful, if a retreat can be called a success; the terrain on which it was fought was extremely difficult; and it cost the Legion battalion dearly.43
THE HILL OF ASTAR is roughly teardrop-shaped, sloping up from the west towards a summit at its north-east end. It is about 1 miles long from west to east, and rises perhaps 1,500 feet above its surroundings. From the north and east of the summit the drops are at first almost sheer; the slope to the south is steep, but that to the west – overlooked by another, larger and slightly higher hill – is more moderate. Photographs published by Henry Clerisse in 1927 show hamlets and farmsteads on grassy lower slopes dotted with olive groves, but the upper part of the long western slope appears almost naked (as is confirmed by Pechkoff ).
The abandoned post was on the north-east summit, clinging awkwardly to an east – west lip of level ground only a few yards wide between the brink of the northern ravine and the top of a stony 30-degree southern slope. The area of the post was otherwise entirely on this sharply southwards-tilted ground, as if built on the ridge and one slope of a pitched roof, and was thus very exposed to fire from the neighbouring hill a few hundred yards to the west. To the north, the outlook is a series of ridges receding towards 6,000-foot peaks about 12 miles away; to the east, the summit today overlooks the more recently built-up areas at the north of Taounate. The southern skyline is the Ouled Daoud ridge about 15 miles distant; short of that, the summit of Ait Maatouf, perhaps 9 miles south-east of Astar and easily identifiable by its accompanying rock sugarloaf, is clearly visible with binoculars (a reminder that in this terrain line-of-sight signalling with optical equipment was often practicable).44
The battalion marched from Taounate early on the morning of 4 June, with about 3 miles to cover to the north-western foot of Astar. Pechkoff writes that this was the first time the battalion had heavy artillery support from the start, including two 155mm howitzers. A timed barrage preceded the infantry – the Legion in the centre, flanked by two Moroccan battalions – across the intermediate ground to the foot of the hill, and then briefly hammered the slopes.45 Pechkoff states that the Moroccan units failed to keep up; Major Cazaban writes that his own battalion reached the north-west base of Astar at 6am, and ‘climbed the slopes at great speed despite brisk fire from the left flank – a big village and olive groves’.
Pechkoff’s 22nd Company were half way up the western hillside before suffering any casualties, when Berbers opened fire from ‘caves’ dug in the slope; Pechkoff detailed most of hi
s men to take care of these while one platoon pressed on. He writes that one of his subalterns reached the summit first as the Rifians abandoned it, and that a few prisoners were taken from the ‘caves’. Cazaban times his arrival at the post at 7.20am, ‘having taken only a few casualties’. However, the steepness of the final slopes defeated the mules carrying the machine guns and supplies; these had to be unloaded 400 yards below the summit for man-packing, and the mules were sent back to Taounate.46
No source describes the plan of the defences in any detail, and on the ground it is hard to reconcile today’s vestigial remains with the theoretical layout of such posts (see Map 22). The northern edge of the summit is a level shelf perhaps 120 yards long by only 10 yards wide, with the remains of substantial drystone walls along the northern and southern lips and transverse walls at the ends and elsewhere. Centred on the steep slope south of this is the concrete water cistern, and a faint line of rubble across the slope below this suggests a second range of buildings; a formless mass of stones now lies beyond its eastern end, south of the artillery platform at the north-east corner of the summit. Southwards again, centred perhaps 120 yards below the summit, the overgrown knee-high ruin of a little building only about 5 yards long shows an internal partition and traces of rough plastering (the author’s local guide, an ex-soldier, called this ‘the commander’s house’). There is no sign today of any perimeter walls on the east, south or west sides. In the scrub perhaps another 100 yards south of the ‘commander’s house’ there are clear traces of an arc of trenches, backed by a couple of piled-stone sangars that could be MG positions, but there is no way of telling whether these date from the French or the Rifian occupations, and we know that Abd el Krim’s men often dug trenches. Pechkoff writes that on 4 June ‘the walls were still standing, although there were breaches here and there’, and again ‘we were behind thick walls and had placed machine guns on the bastions’. One striking feature is a steep staircase of little plateaux thrusting out to the north-west, well below the north-west corner of the summit, where in 2007 Graham Scott found signs of defences sited to cover both the western approach to the hilltop and its almost sheer north face.
Our Friends Beneath the Sands Page 73