Abd el-Krim’s next step was to look across the border into the French protectorate. The northern groups and cities in that protectorate had provided his insurgency with needed contraband and foodstuffs, and French efforts under Louis-Hubert-Gonzalve Lyautey to limit such resources alarmed Abd el-Krim. As a consequence, on April 12, 1925, Abd el-Krim sent his forces into the French protectorate. Catching the French off guard, Rif fighters overran dozens of frontline positions, inflicting some 6,000 French casualties and endangering the important urban centres of Fès and Taza.
Despite that dire situation, Lyautey argued against collaboration with the Spanish, a stance he had advocated since the beginning of hostilities. The French high command, fearing a more-general uprising, replaced Lyautey as both general in chief of French Moroccan forces in August and the protectorate’s resident general in September 1925. The former position was assumed by Philippe Pétain, the “Hero of Verdun” and later the head of the France’s Vichy government during World War II. Led by Pétain, the French rejected Lyautey’s more-subtle policy of calculated military moves based on cautious political preparation and indirect control in favour of joint action with Spain. From June 17 to 25, 1925, French and Spanish delegations met in Madrid to negotiate a series of accords that committed both sides to, among other agreements, a military pact against the Republic of the Rif.
The coordination of French and Spanish forces during the late summer of 1925 led to an amphibious landing of over 18,000 Spanish troops to the west of Alhucemas Bay on September 8, 1925, and a concomitant push of perhaps as many as 20,000 French troops north from their protectorate. Abd el-Krim’s forces, which may have numbered anywhere from 9,000 to 13,000 men, were no match for the combined strength of those two European powers. On October 2, 1925, the Spanish occupied Abd el-Krim’s home base of Ajdir, and between October 1925 and March 1926, they gained control of most of the territories in their protectorate.
In March 1926 Abd el-Krim requested negotiations with the Spanish and French allies. Those talks commenced in April 1926 but soon collapsed, and the French and Spanish promptly relaunched offensive operations on May 8, 1926. The conflict concluded shortly thereafter. On May 27, 1926, Abd el-Krim surrendered to the French, who promised him and his family protection in exchange for the immediate release of all Spanish and French prisoners and the unconditional surrender of Rif forces. Abd el-Krim and his immediate family were subsequently exiled to the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where they remained for the next 21 years. It took the Spanish another year to eradicate small pockets of resistance in their protectorate. In July 1927 Spanish Morocco was declared officially pacified.
Significance
The Rif War balance sheet was striking. Official Spanish casualty figures published in the late 1920s put losses at approximately 43,500 troops killed, missing, or wounded. Moreover, estimates put Spanish war-related expenses at 3.2 billion pesetas (more than $540 million), an astronomical figure given the size of Spain’s economy at the time. French casualties were fewer but still notable, with as many as 18,000 killed, missing, or wounded. Rif losses have been much more difficult to ascertain; one estimate calculated 30,000 casualties, with 10,000 deaths. Many of those may have been Rif civilians who suffered from privation, Spanish retaliation, and the employment of aerial assaults using both conventional and poison gas bombs. The significance of the Rif War and the movement led by Abd el-Krim is still debated, particularly as to whether it was a “modern” and secular insurgency against unwelcomed colonial domination or a mostly traditional jihad in defense of Islam and localized Berber independence.