The Rif War

The Rif War. The Rif War (1921-1926) was the great Berber uprising against Spanish colonial rule in northern Morocco, and one of the most remarkable anti-colonial struggles of the twentieth century. Spain had held a protectorate in northern Morocco since 1912, but its authority barely reached beyond the coastal towns into the mountains of the Rif. In 1921 a Spanish column under General Silvestre pushed deep into the Rifian highlands, where it was met at the hill of Annual by Rifian fighters led by the judge and scholar Abd el-Krim.

The Battle of Annual was a catastrophe for Spain: the Spanish army was annihilated, losing some ten thousand men, and huge stores of rifles, machine guns, and artillery fell into Rifian hands. Abd el-Krim followed the victory by proclaiming the Rif Republic, with its capital at Ajdir, and set about building a state with ministries, an army, and diplomatic contacts abroad. For five years the republic controlled most of the Rif, and Abd el-Krim became an international symbol of resistance to empire.

Spain alone could not recover. In 1925 Abd el-Krim struck into the French zone of Morocco, threatening Fez itself, and France joined the war. The two colonial powers combined their forces, landed a great army at Alhucemas Bay, and crushed the republic between converging columns, using aircraft and, on the Spanish side, chemical weapons against the Rifian tribes. Outnumbered and starved, Abd el-Krim surrendered in May 1926 and was exiled to Reunion.

The Rif War left a deep mark. It shook the Spanish state and helped bring on the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, it taught colonial armies lessons in modern counterinsurgency, and it made Abd el-Krim a hero of Moroccan nationalism and of anti-colonial movements everywhere. The Rif Republic, though short-lived, is remembered as one of the earliest attempts to build a modern independent state in defiance of European empire.

To read more about this topic:

Wikipedia: Rif War Internet Archive: Rebels in the Rif: Abd el Krim and the Rif Rebellion Amyaz: A Country with a Government and a Flag: The Rif War EHNE: La guerre du Rif, 1921-1926