Rif War

There were effectively three Rif wars that were fought in Algeria and Morocco: in 1893–94, 1909, and 1920–26. In all cases, they involved local tribes-men—the Rif—attacking Europeans, whom they wanted to eject from the region. The first conflict, from 1893 until 1894, is also called the Melilla War, and it saw the Rif fighting the Spanish around their port of Melilla. The second conflict, in 1909, centered around Melilla and Morocco, again involving the Rif fighting the Spanish. The third war, from 1920 until 1926, was a major conflict in which the Rif fought under Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi (Abd el-Krim). He proclaimed the Republic of the Rif and fought the Spanish and then the French until 1926, when the Rif War ended.

Socially, the Rif wars, especially the Third Rif War, did not have a great effect on the lives of many of the Europeans who had settled in north Africa, except those who served in the armed forces. In Morocco, the largest foreign community lived in Tangier, an international port, from where they were able to observe the fighting from a very safe distance. In Algeria, into which the war briefly spread, most of the fighting occurred away from the major residential areas.

However, the possibility of danger for the Europeans in Tangier, and also in Casablanca, which was even further removed from the area in which the conflict was taking place, certainly contributed to foreign interest in Morocco, which had a number of eccentric settlers such as Kaid Sir Harry Maclean and Ion Pedicaris, and Emily Keene, an Englishwoman from London who had married the grand sharif of Wazan. In [Page II189]some Moroccan cities, riots had emerged, with locals protesting one of their religious leader's marriage to an English Christian.

People not directly involved in the conflict pictured the romantic nature of the fighting, with a number of novels being written, and photographs, postcards, and later news films showing well-equipped European armies from Spain and France. Correspondents arrived in Morocco and filed reports that appeared in newspapers around the world. The most famous of these was the American reporter Vincent Sheean (1899–1975). He traveled with the rebels and wrote of their genuine patriotism and idealism. He was also able to show that the prisoners they captured were treated similarly to those that were taken by the French or the Spanish. Sympathy for the Riffians was also augmented in the West when the Spanish resorted to using chemical weapons. There were also regular stories about gun-running by British and Americans who brought in weapons for the rebellion, usually—according to the reports—through Tangier, which had an international status and was thus out of the jurisdiction of both the French and the Spanish.

During 1925, the Riffian forces were able to capture 43 of the 66 blockhouses that the Spanish had built to restrict their enemies to the northern part of the Spanish Zone of Morocco. This allowed the Riffian troops to advance close to the city of Fez. From their point of view, it was a bad move, because it frightened the French, who immediately sent their own soldiers into the conflict to support those of Spain. In addition to the French and Spanish soldiers, there were also a number of foreigners serving in the French Foreign Legion and the Spanish Foreign Legion.

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