EUROPEAN VICTORY may have been inevitable, but operations on such a scale would be costly, and political factions in both Spain and France were also insisting that Abd el Krim be treated justly. When his intermediaries made it known that he wished to negotiate, the offer was pursued; the spring offensive had been due to open on 15 April 1926, but on 15 March orders went out to continue preparations but to remain on the defensive. After preliminary contacts at Taourirt and Camp Bertaux, and intense manoeuvring over the agenda, three-party talks finally began on 27 April at Oujda.9
The Primo de Rivera regime had been installed by a military coup, and the Army had much to avenge. (Reliable figures for total Spanish casualties in 1921 – 26 are unavailable, but the number of killed alone probably exceeded 50,000, perhaps by a significant margin – at least comparable to American deaths in the Vietnam War.) Nevertheless, there were those who felt satisfied by the autumn victory at Alhucemas Bay, and Primo himself had never shied from confronting the africanistas with Spain’s need to reduce her ruinously expensive commitment. Walter Harris, whose probably unique contacts make him a convincing reporter of the intense private discussions that surrounded the Oujda talks, states that the Spanish deputation would have accepted the retention of their presidios and a few other strategic bases, and were willing to offer civil development as a sweetener. For the French, the deal-breaker was, as it always had been, recognition of the sultan’s Maghzan and the treaties it had concluded, but both governments were prepared for lengthy negotiations over details. They were therefore frustrated to discover that Abd el Krim had apparently shackled his delegation to a rigid insistence on full Rifian independence, and the Moroccans also prevaricated over the Europeans’ absolute demand for the prior release of Spanish and French prisoners before the discussion of any other terms.
The Rifian foreign minister, Mohammed Azerkan, privately told Harris that Abd el Krim was still listening to French Communist and British commercial advisors who urged intransigence on the grounds that there were still hopes of a beneficial change of government in Paris or of British intervention. Harris believed that the amir must also have been influenced by fear for his life if he agreed to what most Rifian tribes would see as betrayal, and by his conviction that Spain would never allow French troops to cross into her zone in any strength – he was still confident that if he faced the Spanish Army alone he could hold them off. Given their strong military position, the Europeans’ stance over recognition of their protectorates, over disarmament and mineral rights was naturally fairly unyielding, but in the end the question of prisoner release pre-empted discussion of these points. On 1 May, the Europeans delivered an ultimatum that unless all the captives were handed over within a week they would withdraw from the talks. Aware of how few of those unfortunates had survived and of the condition of those who had, Abd el Krim refused, fearing that the sight of them would harden the European negotiating position to granite. The talks broke up on 6 May; in the meantime the French and Spanish had already made extensive joint political and military preparations for an immediate resumption of offensive operations, for which orders were sent out within hours.10
GENERAL BOICHUT had succeeded General Naulin as commander-in-chief in late January; his army was deployed in two corps, of which the eastern would play the more important role. In the west, General Dufieux’s Fes Group, on the Ouergha front between Ouezzane and Ain Aicha, had 3 divisions totalling 34 infantry battalions, including 3 of the Legion. On the decisive north-east front, Taza Group was commanded by General Marty (until July 1925, the colonel of 2nd Foreign Infantry); his 3 divisions totalled 36 battalions, of which 6 were Legion units, so légionnaires provided 9 of 70 battalions, or about 13 per cent of Boichut’s infantry.11
The Abd el Krim brothers still had a core of perhaps 12,000 fighting men of the Ait Waryaghar and their immediate neighbours in the Rif heartland. While not much more than half of the roughly 50,000 French troops committed to the key front were infantry, the imbalance must still seem gross; but 12,000 fearless and skilful guerrillas – who had been trained by shooting at an egg-sized white stone balanced on a branch – could never be negligible to the squads and platoons who had to clamber towards their hiding-places under fire. On the other hand, while defensive fighting among steep ridges and gorges would play to their natural strengths, at several points the Ait Waryaghar had unwisely prepared fixed positions that would offer targets for artillery and aircraft.12
The Franco-Spanish objective was the Ait Waryaghar redoubt of the Djebel Hammam, at the south of which lay Abd el Krim’s new base at Targuist (see Map 20). The Spanish from Alhucemas Bay would advance to the south; those from the Melilla front would push westwards through the Timsaman and Ait Tuzin tribal country in the valleys of the Oued Kert and then the Oued Nekor. General Marty’s French would push north, taking the upper Kert and the Djebel Rekbaba, to reach Souk el Tleta further down the Kert. The linked Franco-Spanish front thus achieved would then pivot on the Tizi Ouzli pass like a swinging door, advancing steadily north-westwards to the Nekor and finally the Rhis valley, Targuist and the Djebel Hammam. In the far west, an advance by Dufieux’s Fes Group northwards to the zonal border would be essentially a fixing operation – it was not intended to penetrate deeply into Spanish territory to form a ‘stop-line’ behind Taza Group’s offensive.13
AS SOON AS WORD ARRIVED of the breakdown of negotiations at Oujda, on the cold, wet night of 6/7 May General Dosse’s 3rd Marching Division attacked on the French far right wing. Here, Major Théraube’s VI/1st REI were committed to an assault on the first ridge of the Djebel Rekbaba, with Major Derain’s II/1st REI among the units ready to support them at daybreak. The légionnaires assaulted up the wet black rocks of hills called ‘the Stump’ and ‘the Dromedary’, and at 3.45am on 7 May the whole crest was lit up by white flares signalling that the objectives had been taken. At dawn, tanks went clanking forwards across an ineffective ditch and into the Kert valley, where Dosse linked up successfully around Souk el Tleta with the Spanish advancing from Midar. That day on the Alhucemas front, Generals Castro Girona and Dolla advanced south-eastwards from Ajdir to the Rhis river; pushing on up it, they fought a major battle on 8 – 10 May at Loma de los Morabos, which cost them nearly 1,300 casualties but broke Ait Waryaghar resistance in the north.14
On 8 May and the following night, both battalions of 1st Foreign were heavily engaged on the Djebel Rekbaba, the II/1st standing off fierce counter-attacks in mist and rain without artillery support. Dosse’s 3rd Division maintained its progress, reaching the Nekor valley on 11 May. That day the Moroccan Division commanded by General Ibos (‘Pierre Khorat’, the Fes diarist of 1911) was in action on Dosse’s left, close to the hinge of the swinging door; the I/ and III/2nd REI, forming a marching regiment under the 2nd Foreign’s Lieutenant-Colonel Gémeau, distinguished themselves by taking the Djebel Iskritten from Rifian regulars and holding the heights against counter-attacks for three days and four nights. On 14 May, the first element of the Ait Waryaghar submitted. Behind Ibos and Dosse the 1st Marching Division (General Vernois), including I/ and II/4th REI, was now coming up fast on Ibos’ left as General Marty’s corps front grew wider.15
Meanwhile, on 10 – 12 May, General Dufieux’s Fes Group had been committed on the Ouergha front, with 128th and 4th Marching divisions (Generals Monhoven and Goubeau) – the latter including I/1st Foreign – advancing fast into Beni Mestara country east of Ouezzane. On 12 May, on Dufieux’s far right wing, General Théveney’s 2nd Marching Division – including I/ and III/3rd Foreign – linked up with the left wing of Vernois’ 1st Marching Division from the Taza Group. In the Aoulai valley Théveney’s left also linked with Goubeau’s right to complete the chain; the Fes Group then pushed steadily north as tribes sought the aman all the way into the Spanish zone.16
On 19 – 20 May, Tercio units fighting their way southwards from Alhucemas Bay reached the Rifian base at Tamasint, and met on the upper Nekor river troops coming west from Midar; on the 21st, th
e Ait Tuzin and Timsaman began submitting to the Spanish in large numbers. On the same day, troops of 3rd Marching Division began climbing into the Djebel Timersgat, with the Moroccan Division well up on their left and, beyond them, Vernois’ 1st Marching curling ahead to form the bottom of the bag around the Ait Waryaghar country. After little more than a fortnight of fighting, Targuist had become the visible prize in a race between the French and Spanish, and that day Colonel Corap of the Moroccan Division claimed it. In his spearhead, Lieutenant de Bournazel’s 33rd Goum reached the outskirts of Abd el Krim’s headquarters from the north, covered by Lieutenant-Colonel Giraud’s 14th Algerian Skirmishers. Targuist was occupied on 23 May after some precautionary shellfire, and was found to be deserted. On the same day Dosse’s 3rd Marching Division took the crest of the Djebel Timersgat and started down into the Rhis valley.17
IF THE SPANISH CAPTURED ABD EL KRIM, he was almost certain to be executed, and – for the sake of future relations throughout the Muslim Maghreb – the French government was determined to thwart their revenge. Some Ait Waryaghar were already trying to sell him; fleeing north over the Djebel Hammam to Snada guarded by his last 100-odd men, Abd el Krim sent letters to Colonel Corap asking for the aman. On 24 May, the senior French intelligence officer, Major de La Rocque, sent his deputy Lieutenant Montagne to Snada with a Spahi escort, while the vanguard of Corap’s brigade – Bournazel’s and Schmitt’s 33rd and 16th Goums – camped to the south-east. On the 25th, Montagne delivered General Ibos’ terms to the amir: immediate release of all prisoners, followed by an otherwise ostensibly unconditional surrender – although it is clear that promises were made regarding the treatment of the brothers and their families. On 26 May, the surviving 283 prisoners were finally handed over at the French camp: 25 Spanish civilians including 2 women and 4 children, 105 Spanish soldiers (but no officers), 6 French officers, 8 NCOs and 27 white rankers, and 112 Algerian and Senegalese Skirmishers. All were in wretched condition; they reported that while some captors had treated them – especially the Spanish – with deliberate cruelty, most had been merely indifferent, and that most of the deaths among them had been due to disease, famine and a lack of medical care, from all of which the Rifians had suffered equally.18
At 5am on 27 May 1926, the Abd el Krim brothers rode in to surrender, and were conducted to Colonel Corap and General Ibos; during the ride, Lieutenant de Bournazel and Captain Schmitt fell in behind with their goumiers. The brothers were allowed to bring with them 25 members of their immediate families and retinue, and 270 mule-loads of possessions and cash. Abd el Krim was calm and dignified throughout, and on 30 May at Taza he made his formal submission to General Boichut. On 14 June he was taken to Fes, and on 2 September he and his family embarked for exile on Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where he would live in retired comfort on a French government pension. The French communiqué of 27 May was clearly drafted mainly for a Spanish audience; in outlining the sequence of events it made clear that Abd el Krim and his family were in ‘protective custody’, having received General Ibos’ assurance that they would not be handed over to any third party.19
The French rejected furious Spanish demands for Abd el Krim’s extradition (and would retain some of the formerly Spanish territory they had occupied during the campaign). On Primo de Rivera’s direct orders, the Spanish mopping-up operations that followed were reasonably restrained; most tribes submitted readily enough when it became clear that their villages would not be massacred, and some of the Krims’ senior lieutenants were even taken into Spanish pay. In the Djibala, Ahmed Heriro fought on stubbornly for the rest of 1926, dying of wounds on 3 November. By that time, 55 of the 66 tribes in the whole Spanish zone had submitted wholly and another seven partially.20
Official French figures for their killed, missing and died of wounds during the whole Rif War from 15 April 1925 to 25 May 1926 are quoted by Henry Clerisse (1927) as being respectively 1,306, 294 and 562 – a total of 2,162 all ranks. However, since the totals for these categories already announced in the Chamber in December 1925 add up to 3,860, it seems possible to reconcile these figures only if the lower total of 2,162 refers solely to actual Frenchmen rather than to French Army losses as a whole – a distinction routinely employed by the government in order to massage the ‘headline’ figures downwards. Assuming that this is the explanation, then 1,167 Frenchmen alone seem to have been killed, posted missing or died of wounds during the three-week spring 1926 campaign, in comparison with 1,005 in eight months of 1925.21 This does not seem implausible given the large late influx of Metropolitan units, but it does dispose of any idea that the final storming of the Rif was a walkover (and reminds us of Captain de Lattre’s misgivings about their tactical training).
These partial figures still leave uncertain total French Army casualties for the whole war. Applying a conventional ratio of say 3:1 for surviving wounded to the claimed figures for killed and died of wounds, a guess of perhaps 16,000 French Army casualties of all categories for the whole 13-month war seems safely conservative.
HAVING DESTROYED ABD EL KRIM, the French generals could turn at once to deal with a much older frustration. Their troops had now been blooded in the Moroccan hills, and the campaigning season was far from over. Before the huge temporary reinforcement of Morocco was reversed, now was the time to crush the Tache de Taza, the last stubborn pocket of truly independent tribes in the Middle Atlas.
Poeymirau’s campaign in 1923 had left the northern loop of the old Middle Atlas ‘figure-of-eight’ encircled by a chain of posts, and in some places chastened by the passage of a column, but it was neither pacified nor occupied. It comprised two distinct Berber territories: the smaller was that of the Northern Ait Segrushin clans in the Massif de Tichoukt north-east of Boulemane, which Poeymirau had penetrated in 1923. North-east again, this merged into the ‘Grande Tache’, the country of Sidi Raho’s Beni Ouarain people. As physically forbidding as the Tichoukt and much larger, this was an irregularly shaped chaos of hills, ravines, soaring peaks and high cedar forest, about 40 miles deep and wide at the greatest extent of its mountainous fingers. On a modern map it lies within the area between El Menzel in the north-west, Berkine in the north-east, Ouled Ali in the south-east and Immouzer des Marmoucha in the south-west (see Map 19). The most striking feature is the Djebel Iblane range, dividing the region diagonally from south-west to north-east under various local names. At roughly its mid-point the mountains rise to the 10,500-foot peak of Tanout, and there are several other summits above 7,000 feet. The radiating ribs of the mountains divide the completely roadless Grande Tache into many secret compartments; like the Tichoukt, it was for all practical purposes closed to wheeled traffic, a heart-bursting ordeal for infantry, and in many places virtually impassable even for pack-mules.
General Boichut had begun to send troops south as soon as he could hand over his areas of operation to the Spanish, and it was in fact on 25 May, even before Abd el Krim had surrendered, that Lyautey’s successor Resident-General Steeg sent an ultimatum to the mountain chiefs. If they submitted quickly the French would be generous, and there would be no reprisals for past misdeeds; if they delayed, he would deal with them as he had dealt with the Amir of the Rif. On 11 June he underlined this threat with selective air raids in the Tichoukt, and on the 23rd, two 155mm guns at Ahermoumou east of El Menzel delivered a last warning. One chief who heeded it was none other than Moha ou Said l’Irraoui of the Ait Roboas tribe, once a scourge of the Khenifra front in alliance with the Zaians, who had been forced to flee this far north by French successes in 1922. Now he rode in to Enjil to submit to General Julien Dufieux, the commander-in-chief for this operation; he promised that others would follow, but they left it too late, and on 26 June the offensive was unleashed on the Tichoukt .22
This preliminary bite took Vernois’ 1st Marching Division only 48 hours to swallow; behind a cloud of partisans and under a flock of circling Breguets, three columns totalling eight battalions converged on the crests. Among them, returning to t
he scene of so many hard climbs and bitter fights in 1922 – 3, was almost the whole strength of the 3rd Foreign Infantry led by Lieutenant-Colonel Amedée Blanc.23 Resistance was light, and the plateau was secured by the night of the 27th. Those Ait Segrushin who were determined to keep fighting melted away to the east, and met Sidi Raho at the village of Taferdoust. There the assembled chiefs agreed to resist to the end, but their resistance was to be by small groups dispersed in uncoordinated pockets all over this mountain wilderness. Sidi Raho was experienced and charismatic, but he was no Abd el Krim, and although his tribesmen do seem to have acquired grenades and a few machine guns, they did not have the booty of Anual and Chefchaouen at their disposal.24
FOR THE ADVANCE into the Taza Pocket, General Dufieux’s forces were divided into two main formations with additional detachments; in clockface terms they were deployed around the edges of the Grande Tache as follows:
At Tamjout (12 o’clock) and Berkine (2 o’clock) were two brigades from Dosse’s 3rd Marching Division, including I/ and II/4th and VI/1st REI. These brigades would move south and south-west, separated by the spine of mountains: on the west the stronger, under General de Reyniés from Tamjout, had the eventual objective of the Djebel Tizi Cherer north of the great Tafert cedar forest, while to the east, Colonel Callais from Berkine would aim for Meskedal. At Outat el Hajj down on the Moulouya river (4 o’clock), Colonel Prioux’s detachment from Vernois’ 1st Marching Division would stand guard to prevent any exodus of dissidents south-eastwards from the hills into the Moulouya plains. Vernois had the rest of his division around Immouzer des Marmoucha (7 o’clock), including the two-plus battalions of the 3rd Foreign. North-west of him at Tilmirate (8 o’clock) was a detachment, including the I/1st Foreign, under General Freydenberg. These two forces would move north-eastwards, also aiming respectively for Meskedal and the Tafert forest to meet the 3rd Division columns. Finally, at Ahermoumou (10 o’clock), the Mounted Company/3rd Foreign were serving with Colonel Cauvin’s detachment; he was at the disposal of General Freydenberg, to help effect the link with Reyniés’ 3rd Division column west of the mountains.25
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