What happened at the Battle of Annual?
In July 1921 General Manuel Fernández Silvestre, Spain's commander at Melilla, pushed deep into the Rif mountains of northern Morocco aiming for the bay of Alhucemas. Riffian fighters led by Muhammad ibn Abd el-Krim overran his outpost at Igueriben on 21 July, and the next day Silvestre ordered his army at Annual to retreat. The retreat turned into a rout and a massacre along the road to Melilla. Silvestre died, the garrison that took refuge at Monte Arruit was slaughtered after it surrendered, and Spain lost thousands of men and almost all of eastern Morocco.1
Spain had taken charge of a protectorate over northern Morocco in 1912, but its hold on the mountainous Rif was weak. From the start Spain struggled to control the Berber tribes of the Rif, and armed clashes that cost the lives of thousands of Spanish conscripts were constant. In 1921 Abd el-Krim and his younger brother rose against Spanish rule, hoping to drive Spain out of the protectorate altogether.2
The road to Alhucemas
The Spanish plan was to push west from Melilla to the bay of Alhucemas, in the heart of the Rif, leaving a chain of fortified posts behind. According to El Correo Gallego's account, General Manuel Fernández Silvestre, commander at Melilla, told King Alfonso XIII in early July that he meant to take Alhucemas on the feast of Saint James, 25 July. By mid-July he had gathered the bulk of his army, some 16,000 officers and men, at the camp of Annual, far from Melilla.3 › The Rif War, 1921 to 1926
Igueriben and Annual
On 21 July Riffian fighters under Abd el-Krim attacked the isolated outpost of Igueriben. Silvestre led a relief convoy of about 4,000 men out of Annual, but it was thrown back and Igueriben fell. Annual itself, without supplies or support, was now in danger, and Silvestre ordered the army to withdraw east towards Ben Tieb and Melilla. The road was in enemy hands.4
What followed was one of the worst defeats in Spanish military history. The withdrawal broke down into flight, and the Riffians cut down the columns along the road. EBSCO's account says Abd el-Krim's men annihilated a Spanish army of 20,000, and puts the dead, soldiers and civilians, at 10,000 to 20,000. El Correo Gallego counts more than 10,000 killed and missing in barely two days at Annual alone.5
Silvestre died at Annual. How is still uncertain: EBSCO says he killed himself, El Correo Gallego that he most likely took his own life, though he may have been killed, and that for a time legends claimed he was alive and a prisoner.6
The Alcántara charges and Monte Arruit
Not every unit collapsed. The cavalry regiment Cazadores de Alcántara covered the retreat from Annual towards Monte Arruit in repeated charges, under Lieutenant Colonel Primo de Rivera. The Spanish royal decree of 2012 that finally awarded the regiment the collective Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand records its fighting from 22 July to 9 August 1921 and its losses: 28 of 32 officers and 523 of 685 men.7
General Navarro gathered what men he could at the fortified post of Monte Arruit, some 30 km south of Melilla. Besieged and without hope of relief, the garrison agreed to surrender on terms. When the disarmed troops came out, the Riffians fell on them, and El Correo Gallego writes that more than 3,000 soldiers were killed in a few hours; Navarro and a few survivors were taken prisoner. The photograph above shows the fort after Spanish troops retook it in October 1921, when General Cabanellas found the dead still lying where they fell.8
Responsibilities
The news stunned Spain. The press named it the Disaster of Annual, and the word responsibilities became a political battle cry. An inquiry under General Picasso, great-uncle of the painter, produced the Picasso report, which according to El Correo Gallego placed the main blame on the high commissioner, General Dámaso Berenguer. Spain had four prime ministers in 1921 alone, and the crisis fed directly into General Miguel Primo de Rivera's coup of September 1923.9
The prisoners held by Abd el-Krim were ransomed in January 1923 for four million pesetas; the list published that month named 285 of them, 241 soldiers and 44 civilians. Abd el-Krim went on to proclaim a Republic of the Rif. It took a joint Spanish and French landing at Alhucemas Bay in 1925 to defeat him; he surrendered to the French in 1926 and was exiled to Réunion.10
Notes
A number in the text points to a note; each note names the works that paragraph draws on, listed in full under Sources.
- EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”; El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”; El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”; El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”; Boletín Oficial del Estado, “Real Decreto 905/2012, por el que se concede la Cruz Laureada de San Fernando, como Laureada Colectiva, al Regimiento de Cazadores de Alcántara, 14 de Caballería”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”. ↩
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”; EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”. ↩
Sources
- EBSCO Research Starters, “Abd el-Krim”
- El Correo Gallego, “Desastre de Annual, primer centenario”
- Boletín Oficial del Estado, “Real Decreto 905/2012, por el que se concede la Cruz Laureada de San Fernando, como Laureada Colectiva, al Regimiento de Cazadores de Alcántara, 14 de Caballería”
