The French Left and the Rif War, 1924-25

In July 1921, a well-organized militia of Riffian Berbers attacked an invading Spanish army at the hamlet of Anual in north-eastern Morocco. Taking the Spaniards by surprise, they killed 8,000 Spanish soldiers in a week and dealt a stunning blow to Spain's decade-long effort to turn northern Morocco into a Spanish colony. After this initial victory, the Riffian leader Abd el-Krim organized a regular army, recruited guerrilla auxiliaries, founded a republic and repeatedly defeated Spain's Army of Africa. By the autumn of 1924, the Riffians had driven the Spanish from the interior and their independent Islamic state had grown so strong that it threatened French imperial interests in the Sultanate and neighbouring Algeria. France responded with border incursions and an economic blockade. After six months of such provocations, the Riffians were goaded into launching an attack, and thus in April 1925, the tiny republic, with a population of 750,000, found itself at war with the world's predominant land military power. Yet for the next three months, the Riffians remained on the offensive, and as Abd el-Krim's army approached the gates of Fez, France entered into a military alliance with Spain. In September, the Spanish landed several hundred thousand troops on the Riffian coast at Alhucemas Bay and burned Abd el-Krim's capital, Ajdir. As the Spanish pushed south, an even larger French force moved north to meet them and cut the Rif in two. The Riffians fought these combined armies of more than half a million men until May 1926, when Abd el-Krim surrendered. Even after their leader's capitulation, some Riffians continued to fight as guerrillas. It took two more years for the Spanish to subdue the remaining pockets of resistance

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