Al Hoceima landing: Spain's amphibious operation in Morocco that astonished the world

When the Anglo-French fleet appeared in the Dardanelles Strait on 18 March 1915, the plan for an amphibious operation in northern Morocco , drawn up by General Francisco Gómez-Jordana, had been dormant in the drawers of the Spanish Army High Staff for at least two years. While the Allied landing in Turkey was improvised after the failure of the first plan by the then Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill , which consisted of a naval attack that would not achieve its objective, the Spanish army had carefully studied the possibility of landing in the Rif Protectorate, a matter that continued with new plans drawn up in 1921 and 1922 and inherited by Jordana's son, future Minister of Foreign Affairs and also General Francisco Gómez-Jordana, who would become the strategist of the entire plan in 1925.

The amphibious operation in Morocco had been going on for a long time and had become one of those obsessions for a part of the army, which had been postponed due to the nightmare of the military campaign against the rebel Riffian tribes. The resounding failure of the Anglo-French Dardanelles operation of the First World War didn't help much either: their troops didn't advance much beyond the beach at that time, and the so-called Battle of Gallipoli became a trench war like that in Europe, which was precisely what they wanted to avoid.

The shadow of the failure of Gallipoli was in fact the greatest concern of the army and of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera , which did not prevent him from doing everything possible, in anticipation of a landing, to buy from the British the type K barges that they had used in the Dardanelles landing in 1915 and that in 1924 were growing moldy and rotten at the Gibraltar base. Primo de Rivera bought them a year before the joint landing with France was finally approved, despite not being convinced by a plan that he tried to minimize until the last moment. Javier García de Gabiola tells this last story in The Rif War (1909-1927) (Almuzara) and with whom El Confidencial has spoken a few months before the centenary of the Alhucemas Landing , a great success of the Spanish-French army that definitively channeled the pacification of a territory "tremendously rugged and arid , without crops or great resources beyond some minerals", as Javier comments to El Confidencial, and that "was a burden for Spain, because in addition to having no resources it was extremely hostile, due to a series of Rif tribes that were in fact in rebellion against the Sultan of Morocco himself even before then".

The history of the Spanish presence is often misinterpreted, as when Defense Minister Margarita Robles ordered the cancellation of the Al Hoceima landing commemorative events "so as not to upset Morocco." The reality is that during the Protectorate period, Spain was in Morocco with the Sultan's approval, although Javier García clarifies that "initially, it was coerced by the situation, because it's true that a protectorate was imposed in Morocco by the European powers, but the Sultan faced a series of rebellions. It was then that he tried to get the European powers administering the protectorate—which, more than administering, is protecting the interests of Spanish and French investments in the area—to defend him from the rebellions. What is clear is that Morocco is in favor of the joint landing, and it suits it."

It is also impossible to understand the 20th-century history of Spain without knowing the events of a campaign that lasted too long, cost many lives , and also had an extraordinary impact on the country's politics. The Rif became entrenched in the depths of Spain due to the implications of the military campaign: it was one of the main causes of Primo de Rivera's coup d'état in 1923 and was therefore at the center of a sequence of events that signified, successively, the end of the parliamentary system of the Restoration, the discrediting of theMonarchy (due to its support for the dictatorship) and the eventual triumph of the republican movement in 1931. It also profoundly marked society and the army, which in fact practically fractured into two groups, between the so-called junteros and the Africanistas. In the latter case, they were the protagonists, with very few exceptions, of the rebellion of July 18, 1936 , which would lead to the Civil War . Africa was not only the battlefield for young officers who rose meteorically through the ranks based on war merits, as was the case with Francisco Franco and Enrique Varela , but also the setting for a romantic notion of Spain based on past imperial glory to take root in the minds of Africanists. "There is a group of soldiers who fought in the war, who carried out real combat operations, and who forged a series of tremendous bonds of camaraderie," notes Javier García de Gabiola, "and all these officers, beyond their life experience, also created ideological ties , so that it is true that the Rif War created a generation that is the same one that later decided to rebel against the Second Republic."

The book goes into great detail on all the phases and development of the military operations of the conflict and not so much on the consequences and events on the Peninsula, but it is precisely purely military history that can explain why in the same campaign and with barely four years difference two events as disparate as the Disaster of Annual occurred, which is a tragic and even humiliating episode for the Spanish army and the Landing of Alhucemas, which was instead recognized at the time as a great operation, well designed and well executed. Was not the Moroccan army a nest of corruption in addition to being poorly prepared and equipped?

"There have been exaggerations with that vision because the truth is that the Spanish army was not especially corrupt , nor botched, as has sometimes been portrayed. What can be said is that until Annual the Spanish units were replacement units, then there were slightly better trained troops which were the hunter regiments and finally there was the indigenous police who were also a little more effective, but of course, they were replacement troops; however, in the war they were trained. Then there is also a very important issue that is overlooked, and that is that at the beginning of the war, until the year 20 or 21, the military directed the operations, but the instructions and ratification were not received directly from the General Staff, as Valeriano Weyler discovered after the Annual Disaster, but rather it was directly the politicians, such as the Minister of Defense, Viscount Eza , who were giving instructions on the areas to be occupied and how to proceed."

Javier does not mention in the conversation King Alfonso XIII , who is the one who has been most often pointed out as responsible for giving orders to Manuel Fernández Silvestre , orders that had meant advancing irresponsibly to Annual without taking into account that many blockhouses or small fortifications lack supplies or nearby sources to carry out the basic watering . This is what happened, for example, in the position of Monte Igueriben in the summer of 1921, when on July 17, Abd el Krim 's troops besieged the position. The Spanish soldiers, about 350, were forced to drink blood, ink and urine until they ran out of ammunition. On July 21, Commander Julio Benítez transmitted a final message by heliograph: "There are only twelve cannon charges left that we will start firing to repel the assault. Count them and at the twelfth shot, fire on us, because Moors and Spaniards will be surrounded in the position."

The fall of Monte Igueriben was only the prelude to the debacle of the entire western front of the Spanish army in the Rif protectorate : the Annual position, where the bulk of the army was located and which was led by General Manuel Fernández Silvestre of the Melilla command, had not been able to help Bénitez's men in Igueriben because in reality they themselves were no better off: shortly after this dramatic message, Fernández Silvestre understood that in the Annual position they were also about to be totally surrounded in a ratio of one to five.

The general panic of the following day, when an attempt was made to retreat towards Melilla, which ended in disarray, further aggravated the situation: the army stationed in Annual, broken and with hardly any leadership, was constantly harassed during a painful flight through the Rif valleys, trying to reach Melilla, which they would never achieve and barely protected by the Alcántara Cavalry Regiment . They still had one more massacre to go, two weeks later, after having managed to take temporary refuge in the Monte Arruit fort just 38 kilometres from Melilla.

And no one came to their aid because the truth is that not a single general on the General Staff dared to leave Melilla unguarded , since the reserve troops from the Peninsula would not arrive in time, and they did not even have basic training. Most of the survivors from Annual were killed by the Riffian troops at Monte Arruit shortly afterwards. The 8,000 dead in just two weeks left an army in tatters, under the media spotlight and with no capacity to respond. The humiliation was total and also generated a political tsunami, which would end up provoked General Primo de Rivera 's coup d'état in 1923. How then was it possible to turn things around? Go from a disastrous situation to completing a major military operation?

This is what Javier García Gabiola explains in his book, which, however, also focuses on the events at Xauen, where perhaps more soldiers died than in the retreat from Annual, although over a longer period. "The reality is that when the 3,000 surviving soldiers from Annual who are in Monte Arruit surrender to the Riffian troops , they are all massacred . Only the officers are saved," says Javier, who emphasizes that it is precisely the Disaster of Annual that changes the army : "It is true that Spain, as Napoleon would say, reacts like a man of honor: it begins to send more troops to Melilla, the first professional units such as the Legion begin to arrive, General José Cavalcanti himself, who had defeated the Riffian troops at Axdir 10 years earlier, once again takes charge of operations... They are still replacement soldiers, but they slowly reconquer everything they had lost, they reconquer Gurugú, they enter Monte Arruit... on the other hand, the Legion, created in 1920 by Millán Astray begins to grow in number and Franco begins to lead the vanguard of the legionary troops, who cross the Kert River... anyway There is a very clear change in the Spanish army: what was once a disaster is no longer a disaster.

All these operations continued during Primo de Rivera's dictatorship until the key moment arrived, when Abd el Krim made the mistake of attacking the French . This led to an agreement between the two countries to launch a joint operation against their common enemy in 1925. Primo de Rivera was the most reluctant to carry it out, not only because he was suspicious, thinking of the Gallipoli disaster, but also because he believed that once the troops had landed and a series of objectives had been secured, it would be advisable to negotiate with Abd el Krim. However, he eventually gave in to Marshal Petain , and the amphibious operation was quickly organized. Why did it take so little time? Because, as Javier García de Ganiola explains, "it was a brilliantly executed and planned operation in which the Spanish practically improvised, due to the prior work carried out by Spain's High General Staff, which had been planning the landing for years. So, when the circumstances were right, it was very easy and quick to carry out the landing."

The reality is that the lessons of Gallipoli have been learned and they are trying to prevent the troops from being cornered along the coast as in 1915 and they try to break the front, they use mustard gas, supporting fire, naval fire... The operation will be studied several years later by Eisenhower for the preparation of the Normandy landing , because according to Javier "it is the first amphibious operation in which two different countries contribute their means to fight. It is perfectly coordinated, timed and planned . And, in fact, it was a success that everyone contemplated at the time."