France, Spain and the Rif, Part 2
Chapter 1 of 9 Chapter 7 Disembarkation in the Rif
- Running time
- 5 h 38 min
- Language
- English
- Read by
- Alister
Chapters
About this recording
The Guerra del Rif—the Rif War. 1921 to 1926. It was the slogging bloody 5-year long climax of Spain’s effort to secure dominion over a territory in North Africa allotted them by France; A chapter instigated over a cause no less profane than a mining concession and which would prove to be an unmitigated disaster for all involved; the Spanish, the French and the Iriffiyen.
This attempted salve for a nation’s wounded prestige would leave more than forty thousand Spaniards as casualties, the nation humiliated and irrevocably destabilize the Spanish state—directly leading to the dethronement of Alfonso XIII, civil war and the rise of Franco. The French Republic would be sucked into the conflict while enforcing their own colonial designs on Morocco and would suffer—only—eighteen thousand casualties. The war evoked widespread condemnation from the left in France and provided an exemplar for anti-colonial revolt which would go on to haunt them for many decades hence.
Finally, Abd El-Krim’s Republic of the Rif would (eventually) be crushed under the weight of an opposing army of almost half-a-million soldiers as well as hundreds of tanks and aircraft. During the war, the Spanish and…