28 Zinovi Pechkoff (1884 – 1966) was born to a worker’s family in Nijni – Novgorod and orphaned young, living by his wits until taken up by Gorki during the latter’s internal exile in that city. As Gorki’s adoptive son he travelled widely with him during his years of external exile before 1914; Gorki then returned to Russia, breaking all contact when Pechkoff chose to remain in France and enlist in the Legion. After recovering from the amputation of his right arm, mangled during the assault on the Ouvrages Blanches near Arras, Pechkoff was diverted into confidential duties as an officer interpreter. In 1917 he accompanied French missions to Adm Kolchak in Siberia and Gen Denikin in the Crimea; meanwhile his birth-brother, Jakov Sverdlov, was one of Lenin’s closest associates on the Bolshevik Central Committee and, before his death in 1919, the first President of Soviet Russia. Pechkoff would alternate between military and diplomatic duties thereafter; he was wounded again as a company commander with VI/1er REI in the Rif War (see Ch 18), commanded II/4e REI in 1933 and III/2e REI in 1937. In Aug 1940 he travelled via the USA to join Gen De Gaulle in London and served thereafter as his roving ambassador to several Allied governments, including Nationalist China, reaching the rank of four-star general in 1945. Finally retiring in 1950, he still performed occasional missions for French presidents. At his death at the age of 82 he was buried in the Russian cemetery at Ste Geneviève des Bois under the inscription he himself had chosen: ‘Le Légionnaire Zinovi Pechkoff’. (KB, No.380; Garros, p.152, also central figure in photo p.82)
29 Pechkoff, pp.26 – 31
30 ibid, pp.48 – 50
31 ibid, pp.71 – 2
32 ibid, pp.73 – 81, 98, 117 – 18
33 ibid, pp.108 – 110
34 Aage, p.138; Livre d‘Or, pp.245 – 6; Fabre, pp.91 – 4
35 Livre d‘Or, p.246, quoting report of Capt Laixelard; Turnbull, pp.161 – 2. Exact casualties not given, but presumably about 18 of the 36. There is today no obvious sign of a fort near the head of the Tizi Adni, but there is a large levelled area with some nondescript modern buildings on the northern shoulder, with good visibility down the pass and out over the Oued Sebou valley. It is overlooked from the high hillside above the south side of the pass.
36 Woolman, pp.103 – 106; Harris, p.126; Hoisington, p.187
37 Woolman, p.111
38 ibid, pp.142, 157; Harris, pp.290 – 9l; Hoisington, p.187
39 Woolman, p.149
40 Porch, Foreign Legion, p.396. The number of captured MGs that the Rifians were able to put into the field was limited by lack of skilled hands capable of maintaining them. The same limitation applied doubly to the artillery; although they had captured about 130 guns the Krims’ few ex-Maghzan and white instructors struggled to form capable crews. There were very few occasions when more than 2 or 3 guns were used together, and they were often employed singly, since moving them and their ammunition over mountain tracks was difficult. (However, Mhamed Abd el Krim gathered 9 guns in cave emplacements near Tetuan in 1925.) Tactics were often limited to direct fire from close range, but occasional impressive successes included hits on Spanish warships off the coast.
41 Woolman, pp.121 – 6
42 ibid, pp.128 – 32; Harris, pp.129 – 31
43 Woolman, pp.136 – 45, 161; Harris, pp.138 – 48
44 Hoisington, p.190
45 ibid, p.191; Aage, pp.124, 128 – 36
46 Woolman, pp.170 – 73; Hoisington, p.196 n(49)
18. Dropping the Baton
1 Interview by US correspondent Paul Scott Mowrer, quoted Rupert Furneaux, Abdel Krim (London 1967), p.162. Aristide Briand (1877 – 1932), also a serial prime minister, occupied the Quai d’Orsay under successive administrations from Apr 1925 until his death.
2 Woolman, p.194
3 Bergot, La Coloniale, p.15; Hoisington, p.196; De Lattre, p.40
4 Vanègue, pp.27 – 38
5 Bergot, La Coloniale, pp.13 – 18; L’Illustration sketch-map, reproduced Clerisse. Exact 1925 positions are difficult to locate today; they are only named on copies of approximate sketch-maps, and the valleys have since been flooded by the Barrage Mjara dam and reservoir system, whose water depth – and therefore outline – varies widely with the seasons. In 2007 the author found it impossible to reconcile the course of some roads shown on quite recent maps with those that exist today, and – to his great regret – he was unable to find a track giving access to Bibane. (From a few miles north of Taounate, the Rif still has a reputation as ‘Injun country’ by virtue of its active drugs trade, and insistent questions from strangers are unwelcome.)
6 About that number had been captured in spring 1921 and others during the Spanish withdrawal to the Primo Line, but in June 1924 the intelligence officer Maj de La Rocque reported that up to 16,000 German Mausers had by then arrived in the Rif on ships from Hamburg. (Garijo, p.261)
7 Woolman, pp.151 – 3; Hart, Qabila, pp.198 – 203
8 Woolman, p.174; Hoisington, pp.193 – 4. However, the claim that Abd el Krim had sworn to be in Fes for the festival of Eid – on 2 July that year – was almost certainly French propaganda, to stiffen local resistance by suggesting that he impiously aspired to usurp the sultanate; he always denied it, and worded his public prayers accordingly.
9 Clerisse, v; KB, No.397; Bergot, La Coloniale, p.20. These were VI/1er REI, and 2 bns of W.African Tirailleurs Coloniaux – II/15e RTC from Algeria and I/10e RTC from Tunisia – which would reinforce 1er RTSM in the outpost line. (Clayton, p.108)
10 Livre d‘Or, p.249; Gugliotta and Jauffret, RHdA, 1981/1
11 A summarized version of the French official account of operations can be found in Clerisse; Woolman gives a précis, but the great value of his book lies in the more extensive Spanish material.
12 Since 1924 a bataillon de type marocain had been organized in four numbered rifle companies, with the former MG coy dispersed in four 2-gun platoons between them – e.g. I/1er REI, reorganized thus on arrival at Missour, 21 Mar 1924 (Garijo, p.147). This gave greater tactical self-sufficiency to each company, but increased its mule train; bns reverted to the Line model of three rifle coys plus one MG coy after the Rif War (Fabre, pp.12 – 13).
13 Adolphe Richard Cooper was born in Baghdad in Feb 1899, the son of an English engineer; he died in Maidstone, Kent, in Apr 1988. After running away to sea, he joined the Legion in Oct 1914 at the age of 15, enlisting for the duration of the First World War. On 28 Apr 1915 he landed at Sedd el Bahr in the Dardanelles with III/RMdA (see Appendix 1). When wounded by a shellburst on 21 June, he was one of the very last of the original men to remain with WO Léon and the skeletal remains of the Legion battalion, and was decorated with the Croix de Guerre. While convalescing in Tunisia he was discharged on grounds of age, at the insistence of his father and British consular officials, in Jan 1916. After service with the British Army he rejoined the Legion for five years in 1919, and re-enlisted in 1924, taking his honourable discharge in Jan 1930.In 1933 the first edition of his memoir, The Man Who Liked Hell, was published in England by Jarrolds; it was translated into several languages, and the French edition by Payot appeared in 1934 as Douze Ans à la Légion Étrangère. Cooper later told the Canadian historian Colin Rickards that it was ghost-written from his notes by a Ms Sydney Tremayne – a ‘lady poet’ – and that after receiving a flat fee he had no more control over it or profit from it. The book includes many colourful yarns calculated to appeal to a 1930s public, and also some outright lies about real events. Many years later he clearly regretted this first effort, and his 1972 revision, March or Bust, is more honest and valuable; while some anecdotes still stretch credibility, he is specific about dates, places and units and includes other useful detail. There is no doubt that Cooper was an intelligent and courageous man who led an extraordinary life. During the Second World War, he was given a British Army general services commission and worked undercover – he claimed, for the SOE in Vichy-ruled North Africa.
14 Cooper, March, pp.111 – 14; Porch, Foreign Legion, p.402; Pechkoff, pp.
143 – 9. The company officers of VI/1er REI in Apr 1925 were: 21e Cie Capt Villiers Moramé, Lts Fain and Douplitsky; 22e Capt Pechkoff, Lts Mauras, Blausener and Fortris; 23e Capt Depesseville, Lts Belaygères, Royer and Lacaisse; and 24e Capt Billaud, Lts Lique, Guyon and Wable. (Garijo, p.177)
15 Garijo, pp.176 – 8; Pechkoff, pp 162 – 70, 190; Cooper, 12 Ans, p.132 and March, p.116
16 Pechkoff, pp.178 – 89; Cooper, 12 Ans, p.143; Garijo, p.183
17 Fes el Bali village – now drowned by the reservoir – is not to be confused with the Fes city medina of the same name.
18 Bergot, La Coloniale, pp.20 – 22; Garijo, p.196
19 Aage, pp.161 – 3
20 KB, No.397; Garijo, p.234
21 Fabre, pp.24, 39
22 The modern town has grown considerably; however, looking at the ridge from the west one can still see a marked fault, dark with trees, running at a slant down across the hillside from the northern summit
23 KB, No.397; Pechkoff, pp.195 – 200; Garijo, p.183
24 Porch, Foreign Legion, pp.404 – 5
25 Approx 3 miles north of Ain Aicha a steep mamelon crowns bare slopes about 1,000 yds east of the present road from Ain Aicha to Taounate; it no longer bears the name used in 1925.
26 Cooper, 12 Ans, pp.151 – 2; Pechkoff, pp.202 – 6; Garijo, p.184
27 Woolman, p.185, quoting Gen Pierre Voinot, 1939; Bergot, La Coloniale, p.10. Apart from the usual castration, eye-gouging and cutting off of ears, noses and lips, the opened stomach was usually filled with stones, grass and trash. It is difficult to verify claims that living captives were tortured; this was not generally a Rifian tradition, but there is anecdotal evidence that some black African prisoners were treated with particular cruelty.
28 KB, No.397; Clerisse, vi; Harris, p.216; Garijo, p.178. Accounts of the fighting are confused by the fact that a number of small posts changed hands more than once; after initial killing and pillaging the Rifians seldom stayed on such positions to offer a target for shelling and bombing, so the French might temporarily reoccupy these hilltops.
29 During May alone the Breguets flew 1,685 sorties; 13 May was the busiest day, when 7 sqns totalled 135 bombing sorties – allowing for unserviceable machines, many crews must have flown three missions that day. The Aviation Militaire’s umbrella command in Morocco was still Col Armengaud’s 37e RAO, HQ Rabat, initially with 10 escadrilles (sqns). In spring 1925 these were dispersed in 5x two-sqn groupes – 6 sqns in the north and 4 in the south, with 8x Breguet 14 combat aircraft each plus 2x medevac. Between 30 Apr and mid-June 1925, the 6 sqns in the north were reinforced to 15 sqns: 6 came from 36e RAO in Algeria and Tunisia, 2 from 11e RAO in France, and one – formed May 1925 at Ouezzane by the American Col Charles Sweeny – was the ‘2nd Lafayette Escadrille’, later Escadrille de la Garde Chérifienne, with 17 volunteer US aircrew, 4 or 5 French and all-French groundcrew. (The ‘2nd Lafayette’ flew 470 missions over both French and Spanish zones; its participation was controversial abroad, especially after a raid on undefended Chefchaouen, and it was disbanded in Nov 1925.) In early summer 2 more sqns, at Kasbah Tadla and Marrakesh, were temporarily put at the disposal of Northern Front, raising its air assets to 17 escadrilles. (Danel and Cuny, pp.45 – 7; Woolman, pp.202 – 3; Harris, p.300; Laine, RHdA, 1978/4)
30 Clerisse, vi; Bergot, La Coloniale, p.22 – 3; Aage, p.166; Garijo, pp.167, 193; Livre d‘Or, p.251
31 At this date Col Freydenberg had 6x bns – VI/1er RE, II/RICM, 2x bns of Tirs Alg, 1 bn of Tirs Maroc, and a mixed bn of Zouaves and Tirs Sénég.
32 Pechkoff, pp.217 – 33; Cooper, 12 Ans, pp 155 – 9. Pechkoff wrote that an attempted pursuit was held off by the MGs on the south bank. Cooper claimed that the rear company were ‘massacred’ and that he himself was among 100 wounded, but this seems to be one of the tall tales typical of his first memoir.
33 Garijo, p.188
34 Bergot, La Coloniale, p.25. The bodies of one or two Europeans in Berber clothing were very occasionally recovered from battlefields, but both the Spanish and the French were over-sensitive about the part played by renegades, whom the Rifians never fully trusted or gave leadership roles. One German, Otto Noja, helped a Spanish prisoner install telephone links, including one that gave Abd el Krim at Ajdir contact with the Djibala front where his younger brother was operating, and a Serbian ex-captain of the Austro-Hungarian Army trained Rifian artillerymen.The notorious Josef Klems, a Dusseldorf embezzler with an unsavoury record, was a self-publicist who put his name to German-language leaflets urging légionnaires to desert to the Rifians; he inspired many exaggerated tales (and P. C. Wren’s short stories about ‘Odo Klemens’), but he seems to have been a habitual liar. He apparently deserted from the Legion in Aug 1922 after being demoted from sergeant for falsifying accounts, and somehow talked his way into the confidence of the Beni Ouarain south of Taza, taking wives and converting to Islam (though his claim to have made the hajj was bogus). After offering his services to Abd el Krim in 1924 he was employed in the Djibala, where his mapping and telegraphy skills were useful, but his claim to have been an artillery instructor cannot be verified. Betrayed to the French by one of his women, he was condemned to death by court-martial in 1927, but his sentence was commuted to hard labour for life in French Guiana. He survived seven years in the bagne before being released, supposedly as a result of German pressure, in 1934, only to commit suicide in a Berlin prison in 1939. (Woolman, p.152; Geraghty, pp.161 and 165; Garijo, p.118)
35 KB, Nos.232, 337; Garijo, p.185
36 Aage, pp.169 – 79; Livre d‘Or, p.252; Garijo, pp.188 – 90; KB No.232; Bergot, La Coloniale, p.26; Woolman, p.177
37 Garijo, p.191; Harris, p.229; Woolman, p.176
38 Clerisse, vi; Bergot, La Coloniale, pp.33, 36; Garijo, pp.190, 224. Ruins can still be seen on the summit of Ait Maatouf.
39 Harris, pp.220 – 21; Garijo, pp.190 – 91
40 KB, No.232
41 Hoisington, pp.195 – 8. Daugan had commanded the wartime Moroccan Division on the Western Front.
42 Hoisington, p.196
43 The sources are contradictory over how long before 4 June Astar had fallen; various details suggest that it had been lost and reoccupied more than once before that date.
44 Today the upper shoulders of Astar are almost entirely covered with olive trees and scrub, and this makes access and orientation difficult. The valleys to the north-west and north are flooded by the man-made lakes of the Barrage and Petit Barrage de Mjara; the northwards creep of the town of Taounate, and modern plantations, make it impossible to identify Sker from the top of Astar, but in 1925 it was clearly visible below. The names then used by the French for these features do not seem to be known among local people today. When trying to find a way up to the summit the author had reached a dead end on an eastern shoulder of Astar when a chance encounter with an impressive hill-farmer (a combat veteran of Moroccan Army paratroopers) led to another attempt from the west, which eventually reached ‘the place where the old mujahideen fought’.
45 Clerisse’s photos show large scrub fires started by shelling; these, and fragments of shells and aerial bombs found on the post site itself, both probably date from a bombardment in September, since the intention on 4 June was to put the post back in a state of defence.
46 KB, No.397, quoting a letter written by Maj Cazaban to Col Boulet-Desbarreau, CO 1er REI.
47 Pechkoff, pp.245 – 57; KB, No.397; Garijo, pp.194 – 6; Cooper, March, pp.119 – 20 and 12 Ans, p.165
48 Aage, pp.179 – 82
49 ibid, pp.183 – 201; Garijo, p.206
50 Ain Mediouna is the name of a village cradled between high wooded hills more than 8 miles east of Gara de Mezziat, but the post at the airstrip was on a broad tongue of flat ground only about 3 miles east of the Ouergha bend, where disused single-storey concrete buildings can be seen today north of the road from Ain Aicha.
51 Bergot, La Coloniale, p.34; KB, No.397; Garijo, pp.198 – 9; Pechkoff, pp.259 – 71; Livre d‘Or,p
.251. Cooper’s account in 12 Ans (pp.169 – 73) is worthless.
52 Pétain, the victor of Verdun and healer of the 1917 mutinies, was Commander-in-Chief and Inspector-General of the French Army and Vice-President of the Supreme War Council.
53 Pechkoff, pp.271 – 5. Garijo (p.200) lists the names of all four Médaille recipients including Poulet, but Pechkoff gives it as ‘Goulet’, perhaps to deny readers a cheap smirk – poulet means ‘chicken’.
54 Aage, pp.202 – 3. He would soon leave the Rif front, and was on sick leave for many months.
55 Maurois, p.270; Hoisington, p.199
56 KB, No.232
57 Woolman, pp.179 – 80; Livre d‘Or, p.253; KB, No.232
58 KB, No.337. This suggests that since arriving at the front four weeks previously II/1er REI had already lost 160 men, i.e. about 25 per cent casualties.
59 Bergot, La Coloniale, pp.28 – 32
60 Woolman, p.186; Clerisse, vii and xii; Harris, p.243; Garijo, p.220
61 Garijo, pp.155, 202 – 3
62 Woolman, pp.199 – 200; Harris, pp.225 – 35; Maurois, p.271
63 Garijo, p.208
64 ibid, p.211
65 Cooper, March, pp.121 – 2. This crippling and extremely painful wound ended Zinovi Pechkoff’s part in the Rif War.
66 Garijo, p.211
67 Hoisington, p.200; Clerisse, ix-x; Garijo, p.215
68 Clerisse, vii; Woolman, p.186
69 The canon de 37mm tir rapide Mle 16 had been issued to infantry battalions since 1917 to give them a weapon against protected German MG nests; it fired HE shells to a maximum range of 2,000 yds, at about 12rpm with a practised crew. It weighed 238lb, though its gunshield and wheels were often removed to lighten it, and it could be carried over rough ground by three men.
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