You may be familiar with the Turkish war of independence, eventually resulting in Mustafa
Kemal Atatürks victory.
If not, then Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara will certainly ring a bell.
The wars these men fought, in an attempt to decolonize or liberate their nation, were
preceded by another man that sparked one of the first modern wars that could be considered
a war of decolonization, and one of the first wars with modern weaponry where guerilla tactics
were employed.
This man was named Abdelkrim, who, during his reign, declared the short-lived Republic
of the Rif.
And... to tell you the truth, he didn’t even aspire to wage a war of liberation, to
begin with.
-intro-
Early life & Domestic Politics
The history surrounding Abdelkrim is interesting because he inspired many decolonization movements
after his reign has long ended.
Born in eighty-eighty-one, Mohammed ibn Abd el Krim grew up in present-day Morocco.
Morocco was colonized by both the French and the Spanish, with Abdelkrim growing up in
the Spanish part.
He was the oldest son of a prominent member of the Ait Ouriaghel-tribe, the biggest Berber
tribe of the Rif region.
His fathers’ name was Abd al-Karim, so..
For the sake of clarity, I’ll refer to him as abdelkrim ’s father.
During his youth, he studied the Qu’ran after which he became a kadi, an Islamic judge.
He took up this occupation in Spanish-Morocco.
His brother, M’hammed, was sent to Madrid in order to study mine-engineering.
At this stage, there was no reason to suspect this family would cause lots of difficulty
for both the French and Spanish occupiers.
During Abd el Krim ’s youth, trouble kept brewing in the part of the Rif that was not
yet fully under Spanish control.
As a matter of fact, it was a hotbed for international power-plays.
The British attempted to prevent the weakening of the strategic position of Gibraltar, the
Germans attempted to weaken the French by encouraging the Spanish to cause trouble around
the border and businessmen that figured the Rif was rich in minerals were constantly arguing
over concessions.
Nineteen-fourteen saw the First World War broke out.
While the European theatre saw stagnant warfare in the West and atrocities around the continent,
the Rif area became even more important for the warring parties.
Abdelkrim was imprisoned in nineteen-fifteen, due to his support for the German sidein the
war.
This support can easily be explained due to the fact that the Germans were in favour of
Moroccan independence, as they were at war with the French colonizers.
The French political authority, as a matter of fact, extended well into the Spanish occupied
territory in which Abdelkrim resided.
He was imprisoned in the Roserrogordo prison in Melilla and tried to escape many times,
to no avail.
In one attempt, he broke his legs while trying to escape from prison.
He remained in prison for 11 months before being released and taking up his profession
as Islamic judge again.
At this stage, he had generated a sense of the social and political persecution that
the colonization had generated among Moroccans, and began to establish relations with the
opponents of the colonial presence in Morocco.
While sources conflict on this, a pretender to the Moroccan throne rose up in nineteen-fifteen
in the Spanish region, with Abdelkrim’s father taking the side of the Spanish and,
after assembling a small army, he defeated the pretender near Selouam.
After the defeat, Abd el Krim’s father, with his sons and around four-hundred warriors,
started negotiating with the Spanish about concessions and privileges.
He wanted his tribe to acquire the status of ‘tribe with most privileges’.
The Spanish general Silvestre, the commander of Spanish occupied Morocco, did respond to
Abd el Krim’s father’s requests; with brutal force, which, of course, antagonized
the entire Ait Ouriaghel tribe.
Skirmishes against the Spanish occupying forces broke out, and the anti-colonial sentiment
spread throughout the Rif area.
As all of this was taking place, slowly but surely time went on and in nineteen-nineteen
Silvestre decided it was probably a better idea to poison the father of Abd el Krim,
as his tribe was becoming an actual nuisance.
After his death, the fighting against the Spanish continued, and the father was, for
a short time, succeeded by Si Mohammed Tahan.
Abd el Krim, however, rapidly gained in prestige and notoriety, especially after his first
victory over the Spanish near Dar Abara.
During this victory, he managed to obtain over three-thousand guns - which was a significant
amount for a Rifian tribe.
Soon after, Abd el Krim was recognized as leader of the tribe.
As a leader
So…
Abd el Krim and his tribe suddenly had military superiority and were an actual challenge to
the Spanish.
General Silvestre, as soon as he got wind of this, moved his troops towards the lands
of the Ait Ouriaghel tribe.
A major, decisive battle, was imminent and in June nineteen-twenty-one, Annual would
be the battle-ground.
General Silvestre had over twenty-thousand troops, while Abd el Krim merely had between
three-and four-thousand men at his disposal.
The result of this battle seems clear-cut, right?
Well, Abd el Krim launched an attack and the result… was a decisive victory for Abdelkrim.
As a matter of fact, the Spanish suffered such a major military defeat, that it is still
referred to as ‘the disaster of Annual’.
Nearly the entire Spanish army was annihalated, over ten-thousand Spanish soldiers were killed,
700 were captured, and Abd el Krim's forces only suffered around seven-hundred casualties.
General Silvestre, who saw the carnage unfold, retreated to his tent and decided to take
his own life.
As a result of this battle, the Rifians obtained around twenty-five thousand guns.
The three subsequent weeks were filled with skirmishes against the Spanish and victories
for Abd el Krim’s men.
Eventually, Abd el Krim was recognized as the leader of the tribe.
And, more than that, the central area of Spanish-Morocco was now in the hands of the Ait Ouriaghel
tribe.
And to think that in the beginning, Abd el Krim’s family only wanted to become one
of the more privileged tribes of Spanish occupied Morocco.
He now had more influence than any other Rifian military commander in the north.
After the victories
Abd el Krim, now attempting to consolidate his power, declared himself emir and subsequently
declared the independent Republic of the Rif in nineteen-twenty-two, in an attempt to receive
international recognition.
He was even elected president, though the voting rights were rather.. limited.
His brother became chairman of the council of ministers and pretty much this entire council
was filled with family members.
This Riffian republic attracted people from all walks of life.
The French communist party, via Jacques Doriot, apparently upheld correspondence with Abd
el Krim, the English had a Rif Committee under Captain Gardiner and Gordon Canning, and the
Germans sent over agents and adventurers in order to up the chaos a bit more.
The military successes of Abd el Krim inspired different types of hope for different types
of people.
To present these events in the geopolitical sphere; all of this happened before Kemal
Atatürks victory against the Greeks and the uprising in Syria, attempting to end French
rule, at the end of the ‘20s.
All taken into account, the Rif became an important piece on the geopolitical chessboard.
Spanish return
The Spanish, very eager to avenge their defeat, started their Rifian offensive in nineteen-twenty-four.
One-hundred-thousand men tried to encircle the Rif, though Abd el Krim and his men, who
had ruled the area for the past two years, knew the territory rather well and had three-hundred-thousand
men.
The Spanish plan didn’t succeed and in a last-ditch attempt, the Spanish attempted
to get Abd el Krim to revolt against the French.
As you can guess, he... didn’t take the bait, and the Spanish were defeated decisively
near Sidi Messaoud in April.
Uprisings erupted all around the territories and the Spanish fell back to two enclaves;
one in the west and one in the east.
Negotiations with the Spanish kept failing, simply because Abd el Krim demanded he’d
become Sultan and wanted the Spanish to leave the entire area, and pay indemnities.
One core tenet of Abdelkrim’s reign was: no concessions to the colonizer.
Thing is, the French also occupied part of Moroccan territory and this… sultanate,
with Yusef as the current Sultan, was their protectorate.
Abd el Krim demanding he’d become Sultan was a step too far.
Marshal Lyautey, the French commander of French-Morocco, didn’t think much of Abd el Krim until nineteen-twenty-four.
He’d refer to the Rif as a wasp-nest and wanted France to maintain a passive posture
towards this troubled area.
French interference
Regardless, in nineteen-twenty-four certain rich inhabitants of the Ouergha valley had
to be protected against Abd el Krim’s troops… according to the French.
Thirty kilometres from the Spanish border, the French started gathering troops under
General Chambrun, whose objective was protecting the inhabitants.
But…
Lyautey foresaw that Abd el Krim may gather enough power and influence that an attack
on French-Morocco would not be as imaginary as it would have been a few years beforehand.
Lyautey requested troops from Algeria to be ready if battles would erupt, though it should
be pointed out that French troops in Morocco dropped from eighty-five to sixty-five thousand
due to financial troubles with the French government under Herriot.
At any rate, both in the East, the Algerian border, and at the south, the French protectorate,
troops were assembling around Abdelkrim’s territory.
In April nineteen-twenty-four Abd el Krim attacked Beni Zeroual, a tribe enjoying French
protection.
The surrounding tribes saw this as a sign to revolt against the French and started attacking
French posts around the border.
These border troops weren’t expecting an assault and the majority had to retreat, some
soldiers blowing up their border posts, others abandoning them.
Four French battalions were formed and when in July the Algerian reinforcements arrived,
something that could be considered a battlefront was established near Taounat and Sker.
Abd el Krim decided to travel westward, but two major tribes, the Tsouls and Kutama, decided
to desert.
He had to retreat, attempting to reach Taza, but was blocked by General Giraud.
Generally speaking, French-Morocco now was relatively safe from invasion.
Pétain
Marshal Lyautey had proven that he was able to keep Morocco away from an all-out war through
all the crises.
Yet the French government of Painlevé decided that Marshal Pétain ought to relieve Lyautey
of his command.
The latter would retire, though disagreeing with the decision.
Pétain took an aggressive approach, requesting reinforcements that often... did not fit the
terrain.
After the Spanish and French, who were negotiating behind the scenes, reached an agreement, the
negotiations with Abd el Krim were opened… and closed again due to him voicing his excessive
demands.
The Spanish and French now worked together in an attempt to beat Abd el Krim, and they
united.
Overpowered, with inferior weaponry and outnumbered, it was only a matter of time for Abd el Krim
to be defeated.
The French-Spanish offensive spanned the entire length of the Rifian mountains and after several
heavy battles, the Rifians were overrun.
The French-Spanish troops penetrated all the way to Targuist, the headquarters of Abd el
Krim.
He let know he was ready to surrender to the French, but not the Spanish.
This was the end of the Rifian Republic.
Exile
After being taken as a prisoner, the French colonial authorities decided to deport Abdelkrim
to the island of Réunion, a French overseas possession close to Madagascar.
His family and he were given comfortable accommodation and a decent annual salary.
Still, he was effectively under house arrest.
The Spanish wanted Abdelkrim to be extradited, though none of their requests were met.
During his period in exile, the former guerrilla leader maintained his anticolonialist rhetoric.
In nineteen-forty-seven, after obtaining authorization from the French government to travel to France,
Abd el-Krim managed to escape during a stopover in the Egyptian city of Port Said.
The government of that country, headed by the king Faruq I, welcomed him as a refugee.
From Egypt, he headed the "Maghreb Liberation Committee ", with the aim to liberate the
entire Maghreb area.
In 1956, after the independence of Morocco, he rejected King Mohammed V's offer to return
with honours to his homeland.
He died in Cairo in 1963, shortly after seeing the decolonization of the Maghreb complete
with the independence of Algeria.
Thank you for watching this video!
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