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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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If I remember correctly when I asked for help on my paper on the Moroccans in the Spanish Civil War a LONG time ago on this forum, someone asked me to post the final result.
Here's it:
Luchamos Contra los Moros: Moroccans and the Spanish Civil War
David Boshko
Moroccans have had an enormous impact on the course of modern
Spanish history. Setbacks in imperial adventures in Morocco lead to the
fall of Spanish governments in 1909 and 1926 and the long war against
the Rif uprising molded the Spanish army into the institution that
launched the Spanish Civil War. But most importantly, tens of
thousands of Moroccans fought for the Nationalists in the Civil War.
They were among the finest soldiers in that war and provided the core of
Franco’s army in the hard-fought early months of the struggle. It was
Moroccans who spearheaded the drive that tore across Republican Spain
from Seville to the outskirts of the Madrid, where they suffered horrific
casualties in a series of battles against the defenders of Madrid. This
bizarre spectacle of thousands of colonial subjects fighting for the army
that had so recently conquered them against the forces of the, at least
theoretically, anti-imperialist Left seems to have perplexed many
pro-Republican historians who tend to largely ignore it, try to pass the
blame to rival leftist faction, or retreat into racist denunciations of the
“barbarian” Moors. This, however, merely underlines the necessity
understanding the nature of Moroccan involvement in the Spanish Civil
War, if we are to shed light on the dark crevices of Spanish History.
To begin with the most obvious of questions, what exactly was
Spanish Morocco? It was a strip of land in North Africa that
encompassed 20,000 square kilometer and which had, in 1912, a
population of over a million.1 By the time of the Civil War, 35,000
Spaniards, 11,000 Jews, and a sizable German community lived
alongside the Arabs and the Berbers.2 Spain also possessed a tract of
land south of Morocco, what is now Western Sahara, but as that colony’s
population played little part in the Spanish Civil War and Spanish
colonial domination of this area was tenuous to non-existent in the
1930’s.3
Spain acquired its first outpost in North Africa in 1556, when a
Spanish Duke who had conquered Melilla 1497 ceded it to the Crown.
To this was added Ceuta in 1640 and Tetuan in 1860, by 1904 the
Spanish had acquired five coastal outposts.4 Spanish involvement in
Morocco was deepened in 1909 when Spain intervened to protect the
interests of a Hispano-German iron mining corporation and to extend its
colonial influence.5 This dispatch of Spanish youth, especially Catalan
reservists, to protect capitalist and imperialist interests was not terribly
popular with the Spanish Left and it triggered a series of violent
confrontations with the police, specifically the CNT in Barcelona, known
as the “Tragic Week” which lead to several deaths and the replacement of
the ruling Prime Minister and his cabinet.6
In 1911 Spain became further embroiled in Morocco when France
decided to establish colonial domination over the entirety of Morocco and
was able to convince the Moroccan Sultan to accept French “protection.”
This resulted in an international incident, as the Germans believed that
they had interests in Morocco and the British did not want to see a Great
Power establish itself on the strategically vital entrance to the
Mediterranean Sea. A compromise was reached in which Germany
received Cameroon and Spain received all of what was to be the
Protectorate of Spanish Morocco. However, Spain did little to extend its
authority over the bulk of its new and rather mountainous and arid
possession and it was not until after World War I that the Spanish
government attempted to impose its authority on the autonomous Rif
tribes of the interior in any serious manner.
The Iqar'ayen people, commonly known as the Rif (which means an
edge or an escarpment), are a Berber people whose ancestry predates the
Arab conquest and who had lived by herding in the barren Atlas
Mountains.7 They speak a dialect of Berber, write in classical Arabic,
and hold to a Sunni Islam that was often heavily colored with Sufism and
the veneration of Saints known as maraouts.8 They were a militant
culture in which virtually every male owned a gun and were fiercely
independent of external authority or any attempt to infringe on their
liberties or self-government. Naturally, the Rif did not take kindly to
Spain’s attempt to impose itself on them and resistance was soon
organized under a young village judge named Sidi Mohammed ben abd
el-Krim el-Khettabi, who is known to history as Abdel Krim. Krim was
able to provide a remarkable level of unity by convincing the fractious Rif
tribes to swear the traditional Rifi pact of mutual defense known as the
liff which bound them together against the Spanish intruders.9 Abdel
Krim’s army made life very difficult for the Spanish as they advanced into
the mountains. Even more surprisingly in 1923, at the battle of Anual,
the Rif were able to rout the main Spanish force under General Slyvestre.
The embarrassment of this defeat and increasing calls for the end
of the drain of money and Spanish lives into Morocco put the Restoration
government under an enormous degree of stress. A young Spanish
infantryman serving in Morocco summed up the prevailing sentiment of
much of Spain when he said
"Why have we to fight the Moors? Why must we civilize them
if they don't want to be civilized? Who is going to civilize us
we from Castile, from Adalusia, from the mountains of
Gerona? Our village has no school, its houses are of clay, we
sleep pin our clothes on a truckle bed beside the mules, to
keep warm. We eat an onion and a chunk of bread in the
morning and we go to work in the fields from sunrise to
sunset."10
This crisis lead to General Primo de Rivera’s Pronunciamento and the
establishment of the Dictatorship. Primo was initially rather opposed to
the Rif War, he labeled his predecessors handling of it "the most
expensive, the most protracted, the most useless and the most
unworthy"11 and ordered the retreat of Spanish forces from Yebala and
Xauen.12 However, just as it seems as if Abdel Krim was on the verge of
victory, the Beni Zerual tribe, which straddled the ill-defined southern
border of Spanish and French Morocco, appealed to Krim to drive out the
French that were intruding on their territory. The Beni Zerual invoked
the liff pact which Krim had used to bind together the Rif tribes into an
alliance of mutual defense against all invaders and Krim was
honor-bound to come to their aid, to reject the appeal would be extremely
shameful as it would be a renunciation of the very glue that was holding
together the Rif.13
Adbel Krim attempted to negotiate with the French colonial
administration and after he had been repeatedly rebuffed he launched an
invasion that drove deep into French Morocco.14 This attack, of course,
enraged the French and lead to a Spanish/French alliance which proved
well-neigh impossible for the Rif to counter. The Spanish won a major
victory at Alhuecemas Bay in an amphibious landing in September 1925,
at which Franco lead the Foreign Legion which provided the vanguard.15
The last battle of any size was fought in May 1926, although resistance
continued until 1928.16
Following this victory, Primo was faced with devising an
administration for the now-subdued land. Much groundwork had been
laid by his predecessors. The Spanish enclaves that pre-dated the
Protectorate were known as Presidios and had been ruled as parts of
metropolitan Spain (although extensive differences in legal codes existed)
rather than de jure colonies. Melilla was administered by Malaga, Ceuta
by Cadiz, and Penon de Velez by Villa Sanjurho.17 The treaty between
France and Spain in 1911 had given the Protectorate of Spanish Morocco
a Khalifa who ruled as the representative of the Moroccan Sultan. The
choice of Khalifa could be vetoed by the Spanish and he remained a
puppet of the Spanish High Commissioner who ruled at Tetuan.18
However, to hold onto any of this and extend his authority into the
Rifian interior, Primo would need to secure at least some degree of
consent from the Moroccans. He began this effort during the war by
putting the stop to such practices as the parading of Rif heads on
bayonets and by trying to encourage better treatment of the Moroccans.
Even more importantly, before the Rif were crushed Abdel Krim was able
to make large-scale judicial and administrative reforms to the country
which included reforming the law code to move it away from customary
law (Ufa) and towards Koranic law (Shari’a), which Primo adopted en
masse and used to form the basis of the administration of the
protectorate.19
"As a result, until 1956 Spain governed her Moroccan Zone
on a pattern laid down not by her own administrators but by
Abd el Krim. The Spanish merely substituted their own
authority for that of the Rifian leader."20
Spanish Imperialism was thus relatively low-impact and a good deal less
intrusive than the French colonial regimes that surrounded the Spanish
Protectorate. Much power was allowed the remain in the hands
Moroccan officials, especially the village judges known as qadi, and
“although strictly responsible to the Spanish colonial authorities was
able to exercise considerable power.”21 Also Primo’s large scale
investments in infrastructure were carried over to Morocco and many
roads, schools, and the like were established. And finally, and perhaps
most importantly, “deprived of their own leaders, and trained to no other
profession than the warrior's, many Rifians and Jibalis, took up military
service under the Spaniards"22 which put much of the remaining adult
Rif population in a rather dependent position and helped insure the
continuation of Spanish domination of northern Morocco.
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Perhaps one of the most important legacies of the Rif war is that it helped
contribute to the polarization of Spanish society. It undermined the
power of the liberal monarchists and left a political vacuum for
republicans, the radical left, and the radical right. The strikes and
actions in protest of Spanish involvement in Morocco were a proving
ground for the Spanish anarchist movement and the battles of Morocco
gave birth to a new Spanish army, the army whose rebellion would tear
Spain asunder. The leading Nationalist generals Mola, Goded, Queipo de
Llano, Sanjurjo, and Franco23 all served in Morocco and the fighting
gave the Army, especially the elite Foreign Legion (which was ironically
predominately Spanish)24 and the Moroccan Regulares, the combat
experience they would need to crush the leftist Militias.
This polarization of Spanish society applied just as much to
Moroccan society. "Abd el Karim's fight against enormous odds had fired
the imaginations of Moorish patriots"25 and the Rif War thus gave birth
to the modern Moroccan Nationalist movement, which was founded in
1926 by Ahmed Balafrej.26 By 1932 it was strong enough to publish a
magazine.27 However this magazine was publish in French and the
heart Moroccan Nationalism was always in French Morocco while
Spanish Morocco was, more than anything, used as a refuge from the
wrath of the French authorities.
However, Moroccan Nationalism was strong enough in the Spanish
zone for there to be a series of leftist and nationalist demonstrations and
strikes following the declaration of the Spanish Republic. The military
commander of Morocco was forced to fleet to Tangiers. The immediate
reaction of the new Republican regime was to sent General Sanjurgo, the
head of the Civil Guards, to Morocco. He declared a State of War and
ordered military occupation of Tetuan. The striking workers who had
been demanding eight hour days and working conditions that would
equal those of the local Spaniards were crushed.28
This set the tone of the Republican administration of Spanish
Morocco. The Socialists, who participated in the coalition government,
made no attempt to put into action any of the anti-imperialist rhetoric of
the left. A delegation of Moroccan nationalists lead by Abdeselam
Bennouna that went to Madrid to request independence, or at least
autonomy, were sent back empty handed.29 If anything, the situation
came to be worse than what it had been in the last years of the Primo
Dictatorship. Strikes were outlawed, as they were a threat to "the peace
and public security of the Zone", public works expenditures were
reduced, and tribesmen continued to be forced to carry passbooks.30
There were some small-scale administrative reforms in which they
Republicans attempted to centralize power under a civilian High
Commissioner and at least partially reduce the military aspect of colonial
rule in Morocco (which included reductions in the size of the Army of
Africa in 1931 and 1932) but few of the lower and mid-level staff were
replaced and the administration continued much as before.31
The decision by the government to send a unit of Moroccan
Regulares along with a unit of Chasseurs (elite mountain-fighters) and
two units of Legionaries to suppress the Asturias uprising drove a deep
wedge between Moroccans and the Spanish left.32 Although the
Moroccans only composed a quarter of the force, the left singled out the
Moroccan “mercenaries” for condemnation, as Preston puts it
“The losses among women and children, along with the
atrocities committed by the Moroccan units under the
command of Franco’s life-long crony Colonel Juan Yague
Blanco, contributed to the demoralization of the virtually
unarmed revolutionaries.”33
There was a huge upswell of condemnation of the “butchers of October”
and shocked denunciations of the decision to “ship Moorish mercenaries
to Asturias, the only part of Spain never dominated by the Crescent, to
fight against Spanish workers.”34
And so, when the army rose up against the Republic the
Moroccans saw very little reason to support the Republic. The Republic
had done nothing for them and it certainly didn’t appear that the Popular
Front government would be any different. After all, the Popular Front’s
Manifesto made no mention of Morocco35 and even the Communists had
dropped their platform point calling for the "immediate unconditional
liberation of Northern Morocco and all other Spanish colonial territories"
when it adopted its popular front strategy.36 To their credit the POUM,
CNT, and FAI continued to call for Moroccan independence but their
effect on the colony were minimal at best.37
When the Civil War began Franco had little difficulty securing
control of the Protectorate. The Moroccan Regulares followed their
officers into revolt and there were soon joined by thousands upon
thousand of new recruits. They played a symbolically vital role not only
as the sole members of Franco’s bodyguard but as the troops of choice
for the crushing of mutiny within the army’s ranks.38 After the war the
Franco regime claimed that 70,000 Moroccans served on their side while
the Moroccan nationalist Mehdi Bennouna places the figure at 135,000,
however it seems that these figures may be at least somewhat
exaggerated as only 75 Moroccan battalions of less than 500 men each
were formed.39
These Moroccans were absolutely vital to the fascist war effort, as
on the mainland the insurrectionaries had fared badly, only half of the
army had revolted while virtually every large city, aside from Seville,
remained in the hands of the Republic or the anti-fascist militias. It was
the ferrying of the Army of Africa to the Spanish mainland that turned
the tides of war against the Republicans. The ill-trained militias proved
no match for the Moroccans who in battle after battle were at the
forefront of the Nationalist armies. They tore across western Spain from
Seville to Madrid, and it was only after the early battles for control of
Madrid took an enormous toll on the Moroccans that they ceased to
provide the exclusive vanguard of Franco’s army.
Why was Franco so successful at recruiting so many thousands of
Moroccan volunteers and why, throughout the Civil War was there no
revolt or any real disturbances of any sort in Spanish Morocco? One
would think that while civil war raged in Spain the Moroccans would
have had the perfect opportunity to throw off Spanish rule and that the
Loyalists would be more than willing to attempt to rouse revolt in
Franco’s rear. But nothing of the sort happened.
The most common explanation for this by Republicans was that
the Moroccans were “mercenaries.” This is somewhat inaccurate as,
unlike the International Brigades, the Moroccans were under Spanish
soverignty. However, it is true that the pay that they would receive was
quite tempting, for the Moroccans were an impoverished people who
needed to support their families and fighting was one thing they knew
how to do and do well. This choice became all the more urgent as a
severe drought descended on Morocco, and made to fight for Franco or
not to fight for Franco a question of life and death in some cases.40
In addition, the prospect of getting paid by Spaniards to kill
Spaniards seems like a quite attractive proposition especially as the
physiological wounds of the Rif War were still raw. As one Spanish
journalist puts it
“That they could kill infidels and be praised for it by these
hated Europeans who had subdued Islam made risking their
lives worth wile, and in the bargain they had the proud
delight of seeing them run in panic before their
overwhelming onslaughts.”41
This is, of course, only part of the story of why so many Moroccans
fought for Franco and why there was so little resistance to his rule in
Morocco. One must note the nature of Spanish rule in the protectorate.
As there were few Spaniards who did not have at least some Moorish
ancestry there was less racism among Spaniards in Morocco than in
other colonial regimes.42 Similarly, due to the poverty of many of the
Spaniards in Spanish Morocco and the comparatively large number of
Spanish-speaking Moroccans there was comparatively less of a social
divide between the Spanish and the Moroccan than between the French
and their colonial subjects.43
Also, the non-Spanish population fell under the jurisdiction of
Koranic law rather than Spanish law and they were generally tried by
native judges. This did a great deal to bolster the legitimacy of the
colonial regime in the eyes of much of the Moroccan population,
especially the population of the largely-Arab coastal cities that did not
especially want to be subject to the rule of the Rif. The Rif and other
tribesmen of the interior certainly had no love for the Spanish who had
had so recently conquered them but they had been largely pummeled
into submission and they were largely leaderless and dependent on the
Spanish army for employment. In addition, Nationalist propaganda that
portrayed the “rokhos” (Red) as malignant and godless had some
measure of success especially, in the light of the lack of countervailing
propaganda.44 And finally, during the Rif War, Franco had acquired a
reputation for had baraka, “a mixture of luck and divine protection
afforded to a chosen few,”45 which was certainly a useful trait.
There was a steadily growing Moroccan nationalist movement but
it posed Franco little trouble.
"At first the Francoists were leery of the Moroccan
Nationalists. However, General Franco and his subordinates
soon recognized that the Moroccan Nationalists -- a basically
urban, elitist, and Arab group -- were no threat to their
"crusade" and that their continued existence could in fact be
quite useful as an example of Francoist largess." 46
The most important nationalist in the Spanish zone was by Abdel Khalek
Torres, who lead the Islah or National Reform Party.47 However his
authority was far from absolute and was continually challenged by Mekki
Naciri’s Maghrib Unity party.48 Although Torres was originally jailed for
his repeated (and ignored) warnings to the Republic that the army was
on the verge of revolt, he quickly agreed to work with Franco and was
given a Ministerial post in the colonial government.49 The division
among the nationalist ranks, the desire on the part of the nationalists to
maintain Spanish Morocco as a refuge from the French colonial
authorities. and the ease with which Franco was able to manipulate
them by assigning them posts in the colonial government allowed Franco
to prevent the nationalist movement from becomming a serious threat.
"Posts in the administration were given to nationalists with
great skill and surprising success in order to maximize
interpersonal strain among the nationalists. When one
considers the bargaining power the nationalists of the
Spanish zone possessed through the large numbers of
Moroccan troops sent to fight for Franco, one realizes that
they might have accomplished more if they had been willing
to manipulate the tribes and brotherhoods of the Rif
Mountains as the Spanish were.”50
This lack of unity between the urban and Arab Nationalists made the
threat of effective Moroccan resistance to Franco’s rule further unlikely.
There was a long history of Rif raids against the Arabs and Arab
contempt for the uncultivated tribesmen. Furthermore. favoritism on the
part of the colonial government towards the Arabs in that, "the Spanish
protectorate generally supported the Arabic language as against Berber,
classical Islamic as opposed to local architecture, formal Islam as against
maraboutism and sufism, and the shari'a against customary law,"51
made the Arabs more willing to bow to the Spaniards and the decimation
of the Rifian leadership in the 20’s left few who were willing and able to
stir up any discontentment that existed among the tribesmen, least of all
the Nationalists who showed no desire to reach out to the Rif in any
meaningful way.
In addition, Franco took steps to ensure that the bulk of the
Moroccan population acquiesced to some degree to his reign. He
provided compensation to the families of the Moroccan soldiers that died
as well as the wounded soldiers and pensions for the veterans (which
continued to be paid even after Morocco became independent). In
August 1937, the Nationalist government authorized 11,625,000 pesetas
for public works in the Protectorate. While this could not compare to the
83 million pesetas that were spent in 1928 it was a sizeable sum
considering the wartime conditions.52 And finally, Franco promised
vague administrative reforms that would grant the Moroccans greater
power, which were never carried out by the colonial bureaucracy in any
meaningful manner but were made much of by Franco’s propaganda
machine and subsequently bloated as they entered the realm of rumor.
“the conviction of the Arabs, based on vague and exaggerated
rumors coming from the coast by the word of mouth, is that
the insurgent Moors are gaining a great victory over the
unbeliever on his own soil and that the outcome will be the
liberation from the infidel usurpers domination of all Islam,
certainly in North Africa.”53
While the above statement itself may be somewhat of an exaggeration,
there must have been at least Moroccans that believed that a victory over
the “Reds” would further the cause of Moroccan independence.
And finally, from an international perspective, Moroccans tended to
support Germany and Italy, who backed Franco, rather than the more
pro-Republican West. This was especially the case with the Germans,
who had been stripped by their colonies at Versialle and thus could
engage in general anti-Imperialistic and specifically pro-Arab rhetoric in
a way that France and the UK obviously could not. Thus, when France
capitulated in 1940, Torres lead a delegation to Berlin to congratulate
Hitler on his victory.54 The German Consulate in Tetuan did all it could
to promote pro-German sentiment among the Moroccans. During the
Spanish Civil War the Consulate and the local representatives of the Nazi
Party distributed a large number of pamphlets espousing anti-French
and, unsurprisingly, anti-Jewish views and were apparently so
successful at currying favor with the local press that the Consulate
reported to Berlin that “The Arab press is almost overdoing its praises in
dealing with German affairs.”55 All that France and the Britain had to
offer in return was the harsh reality of colonial rule. And during the Civil
War the Republicans did little to convince the Moroccans otherwise.
In fact, on the other side of the lines of the Civil War, the situation
began with the Popular Front failing to make any mention of the colonial
situation in its manifesto and then continued to steadily worsen. In the
last days before the insurrection it threatening to punish those
Moroccans who had participated in the suppression of the Asturias
rising.56 The conservative anti-revolutionary policy of the Communist
Party carried over to the colonial issue and even the anarchists
newspapers were largely silent about Spanish imperialism in Morocco.
Only the POUM’s mouthpiece La Batalla carried on an active campaign
for the declaration by the Republican government of Moroccan
independence.57 The offer by a group of Moroccan nationalists, that
went to Spain in the autumn of 1936, to “save democracy in Spain”57 in
return for support for Moroccan independence was rebuffed.
Some rather pathetic attempts were made by the Republicans to
stir up revolt. Largo Caballero offered Abdel Kjalak Torres 40 million
pesetas to spread pro-Republican on the condition that they would
“behave well” after the war was won was rejected.58 In February 1937,
Carlos Baraibar’s, the Undersecretary of State for War, made an abortive
attempt to bribe Moroccan leaders to rebel that met with no more
success.60 The Republican Minister of Foreign Affairs Alvarez del Vayo
seemed to speak for most Republicans when he said that the Moroccan
are "immune from all political propaganda of a democratic nature."61
One of the reasons for this stance on the part of the Loyalists
was the world diplomatic situation, especially with regards to the
French. In 1930 the French promulgated a “Berber” Dahir (law
code) that was largely based on French criminal law and which
superceded most Koranic and traditional Moroccan law. This
infuriated the Moroccans and allowed the nationalist movement to
portray itself as the “champions of Islam.”62 Throughout the 30s
the French Protectorate in Morocco faced dogged resistance from
Nationalists and matters were not helped any by French settlers,
large-scale inequalities, restive mountain tribes that had never
been fully subdued, and considerable racism on the part of the
French colonial bureaucracy. Understandably, the French viewed
the prospect of an independent or autonomous Spanish Morocco
with a great deal of forboding and Herriot, the French minister of
the colonies, “threatened terrible acts, if the republic were to give
its support for such an enterprise (i.e. the independence of
Spanish Morocco) which, in his opinion, was an act of
madness.”63
As a result, the Loyalists came to use Spanish Morocco to woo the
French, and to a lesser extent, the British government. Commanding the
entrance to the Mediterranean, the location of Spanish Morocco was
highly strategic, a fact that Blum was painfully aware of. After all, he
justified his abortive decision to aid the Republic in the first days on the
Civil War on the basis of the need to keep the lines of communication to
French West Africa in the hands of a friendly government. In the spring
of 1937, Caballero offered Britain and France concessions in Spanish
Morocco which possibly included the transfer of territory in exchange for
military aid.64 The Communists backed this strategy of attempting to
trade Morocco for aid and not antagonizing the west by promising greater
freedom to the Moroccan population, as the Soviet Union wanted an
alliance with France which would be endangered by actions by
Communist parties that endangered French colonial interests. However,
Britain rejected this offer on March 18th, the very day conclusive
evidence was uncovered that the Italians had sent fifty thousand regular
soldiers to fight in Spain, and France did likewise soon afterwards.65
Thus the Republic was to remain tied to a colony that did it no good and
provided the enemy with a constant stream of first-rate soldiers. On the
Nationalist side of the diplomatic front, Hitler attempted to pressure
Franco into granting Germany certain economic concessions, notably to
the Moroccan iron mines, which Franco was largely successful in
resisting.
Instead of making any sustained effort to woo the Moroccans, the
Republicans instead spent a great deal of time talking of the barbarous
cruelty of the Moors. While it certainly cannot be denied that the
Moroccans carried out many atrocities it seems strange that descriptions
of the wanton brutality of Moroccans appear side by side with
descriptions of their well-disciplined nature in such passages as
"The Moroccans fought methodically, calmly. Fear and
retreat were unknown to them...Fanatically religious
Muslims, they soldiered with the loyalty (and savagery) of
dogs, secure in the belief that the hereafter would be good to
them. Untroubled by any notion of why Spaniards were
slaughtering each other, they were grateful for the chance to
practice their favorite sports: killing and raping.”66
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Bosh
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Taehan Mingook
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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It seems that the fascist officers put relatively little effort into restraining
the Moroccans from engaging in the lust for loot that seems to be present
in soldiers of all wars. In fact, in many instances, Franco’s army
commanded the Moroccans to “live off the land” in which case the
Moroccans had the choice of seizing food from the local population or not
eating.67
In fact, it appears that at least to some extent, the nationalists
attempted to cultivate an aura of bestiality around their Moroccan
soldiers that would strike fear into the heart of their enemies, redirect
hate from themselves to their Moroccan soldiers, and perhaps create
enough hostility between the Moroccans and the “reds” to forestall any
subversion of their prized Moorish Regulares. The radio broadcasts of
Quiepo de Llano, the nationalist commander in Seville, are an excellent
example of this in which he “invite(d) the lily-livered "reds" to send their
women to Andalusia, where men were men, and boast in salacious, and
doubtless imaginative, detail about the sexual exploits of the Moors”68
as well as give “revolting descriptions of the rapes to be committed by
Moorish troops should they capture Madrid.”69 If this was in any way a
conscious campaign on the part of the insurrectionaries it was certainly
effective as a psychological weapon for in many cases "as soon as they
(the militiamen) see Moroccan cavalry they start to run."70
The Republican authorities did nothing to combat this perception
of the Moroccans as frightful demons. Instead racism of the crudest sort
flourished, posters in Madrid depicted the Moroccans as "thick-lipped,
hideously grinning, powerful turbaned figures attacking defenseless
white women and bayoneting white children”71 and members of the
International Brigades came to refer to the Moroccans as “niggers.”72
This was certainly a low point for the values of international liberation
and the brotherhood of mankind that the Loyalists claimed the
represent.
This folly outlasted the Civil War itself. As the Civil War drew to a
close, a vast wave of refugees poured out of Spain, some due to the belief
that the Moors were fond of eating Spanish children.73 Many were
subsequently herded into camps in France where they were often
guarded by Senegalese and in some cases even Moroccan soldiers. This
was viewed as a horrific insult and some even viewed it as a result of a
plot by French fascists.74 The Moroccans (and even black Africans)
seemed to be nothing more than a symbol of Franco’s victory to the
Republicans. This trend continues to this day in the pro-Republican
histories of the Civil War whose opinions of the Moroccans is decidedly
negative and their coverage decidedly brief.
In the end what can we make of Moroccan involvement in the
Spanish Civil War? In short, it seems to rooted in a fundamental failing
in the Spanish Republican cause. During the conquest of Morocco
people were enraged at the lives of Spaniards that were being lost and
the huge cost of the campaign, but very few tears were shed for the
Moroccans themselves. During the Second Republic few attempts were
made to better the lot of the Moroccans in any real way, let alone grant
them independence, instead martial law was imposed and the right to
strike was revoked in the Protectorate. During the Civil War the left
attempted to bargain away Morocco in return for guns and instead of
attempting to rally the Moroccans to the Republic they howled against
the barbarity of the Moroccan “mercenaries.” The left as a whole,
specifically the Popular Front parties, completely failed to make a strong
stand against imperialism and this came back to haunt them in the form
of thousands of Moroccan soldiers tearing their brave militiamen to
pieces. This mindset was one of the greatest failings of the general
Popular Front and Communist strategy of avoiding revolution and
seeking stable disciplined government that would not disturb moderate
liberal imperialists either at home or abroad that became increasingly
prevalent in Loyalist Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The
POUMistas and the Anarchists that opposed this course sadly lacked
either the will or the power to avert the Spanish left from the disastrous
mindset of acquiescing to colonialism.
1. Moradiellos, Enrique. Spain in the World. Spanish History Since 1808
edited by Jose Alvarex Junco and Adrian Shubert. 2000. p 119.
2. Greene, Marc. North Africa in Turmoil. Current History. December 1937.
3. Damis, John. Conflict in Northwest Africa. 1983. p 10.
4. Ellwood, Sheelagh. Franco. 1994. p 10.
5. ibid. p 12.
6. ibid. p 12.
7. Driessen, Henk. On the Spanish Moroccan Frontier. 1992. p 66.
8. ibid. p 70.
9. Furneaux, Rupert. Abdel Krim. 1967. p 85.
10. ibid. p 77.
11. Landau, Rom. Moroccan Drama.1956. p 165
12. Moradiellos. p 210
13. Furneaux. p 146.
14. ibid. p 185.
15. Moradiellos. p 211.
16. ibid. p 211.
17. Landau. p 163.
18. ibid. p 167.
19. Furneaux. p 88.
20. Woolman, David. Rebels in the Rif. 1968. p 219
21. Sedon, David. Moroccan peasants. 1981. p 211.
22. Landau. p 166.
23. Green, Jospeh. The experience of the Spanish anarchists shows that autonomous
collectives can't overcome the marketplace.
http://www.flash.net/~comvoice/10cSpanishCivil.html
24. Foltz, Charles. The Masquerade in Spain. 1948. p 30.
25. Landau. p 152.
26. ibid p 147.
27. ibid p 153.
28. Fleming, Shannon. Spain in the Twentieth-Century World. Essays on Spanish
Diplomay. Edited by James W. Cortada. 1980. p 128
29. Landau. p 47.
30. Fleming. p 129.
31. Fleming. p 128.
32. Ellwood. p 55.
33. Preston, Paul. The Coming of the Spanish Civil War 2nd Edition. 1978. p 177.
34. ibid. p 177.
35. Cushion, Steve. The question of Moroccan independence and its effect on the Spanish
Civil War. http://www.lgu.ac.uk/langstud/med/med/morocco.htm
36. ibid.
37. ibid.
38. Rebellion in Rebel Spain. Nation. December 11, 1937.
39. Payne, Stanley. The Spanish Revolution. 1970. p 327
40. Drought in Morocco. Literary Digest. 1937. I found a number of references to a
drought in Morocco in journals that are not in Olin in reference works, this is one of them.
There were others such as “Nomad Land Begs for Water” and similar titles.
41. Nogales, Manuel. trans de Beaza, Luis. Heros & Beasts of Spain. 1937. p 58.
42. Landau. p 168.
43. Landau. p 121.
44. Sedon. p 157.
45. Ellwood. p 15.
46. Fleming. p 140.
47. Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War Third Edition. 1977. p 578.
48. Landau. p 49.
49. ibid. p 49.
50. ibid. p 46.
51. Driessen. p 70.
52. Fleming. p 131
53. Greene.
54. Landau. p 51
55. Burns, Emile. The Nazi Conspiracy in Spain. 1937. p 187.
56. Jellinek, Frank. The Civil War in Spain. 1969. p 295.
57. Cushion.
58. Hugh. p 587.
59. ibid. p 587.
60. ibid. p 587.
61. Lessons of People's War in Spain 1936-1939. Progressive Labor. October-November
1979.
62. Sedon. p 30.
63. Hugh. p 587.
64. Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War. 1965. p 424.
65. Jackson. p 424.
66. Wyden, Peter. The Passionate War. 1983. p 164.
67. Notebook on the Nationalist Army.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1940/400808a.html
68. Jackson. p 298.
69. Lessons of People's War in Spain 1936-1939. Progressive Labor. October-November
1979.
70. Notebook on the Nationalist Army.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1940/400808a.html
71. Lessons of People's War in Spain 1936-1939. Progressive Labor. October-November
1979.
72. ibid.
73. Pike, David. Conjecture, Propaganda, and Deciet and the Spanish Civil War. 1968. p
211.
74. de Palencia, Isabel. Smouldering Freedom. 1945. p 48.
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