That morning Lieutenant Colonel Millán Astray , who a year earlier had founded the Tercio de Extranjeros, was found in Rokba-Gozal together with three flags of his recently created corps, forming part of the campaign to take Tazarut, on the western front. He receives from General Álvarez del Manzano the order to quickly send one of his flags to the Fondak of Ain Yedida, near Tetouan, without further details. The winner of the draw is Commander Francisco Franco, in command of the first flag, who immediately begins one of those legionary feats frequently exalted:a forced march of a battalion with its weapons and impedimenta of more than 100 kilometers in less than two days that He allowed them to embark in Ceuta on the ship Ciudad de Cádiz on the 23rd. Too bad that on that same day the eastern army was already in full rout.
The arrival on July 25 at the port of Melilla of two Tercio flags together with two tabors of Regulars was much celebrated by the terrified population. The day before, a battalion of the Regiment of the Crown and the High Commissioner himself had arrived at the Plaza. As the reinforcement troops arrived, they were ordered to parade through the streets of Melilla in order to raise the morale of its inhabitants, who saw the enemy at their doors. No matter how many reinforcements arrived, to the prudent Berenguer they did not seem enough or sufficiently prepared. In a meeting on August 6 with the high command present in the Plaza, it was considered a very risky undertaking to go to the aid of Monte Arruit, some 35 kilometers away, and permission was granted to General Navarro, who commanded the remains of the Annual army there. refugees, to negotiate their surrender with the besiegers. As is known, on August 9 the conditions of the pact were not met and, once the position was handed over, the Harqueños massacred the entire garrison , except for a few commanders who were taken hostage.
As a consequence of the Annual Disaster, the Allendesalazar government resigned and was replaced on August 14 by another headed by Maura, who confirmed General Berenguer in his post and whom he He presented a plan for the reconquest. The next day the occupation of some positions and blockhouses around the Plaza began, with strong enemy opposition. Meanwhile, at the beginning of September, the Harqueños began to bombard Melilla from the Gurugú mount . The cannon shots produced little material effect, but they did have a great moral wear on the civilian population and the more than 35,000 soldiers present at the time. The first offensive maneuvers would be aimed precisely at encircling and occupying said mountain.
On September 12, the attack began with the capture by General Cabanellas's columns of Zoco el Arbaa, preceded by an intense artillery preparation by the navy and the air force. The harka reacted by concentrating on the pass to the east of Gurugú to avoid taking Nador. On the 15th they destroyed the Dat Hamet blockhouse, nicknamed "The Bad One" , despite the reinforcement of 15 volunteer legionnaires, who came to the aid of their companions knowing that this would probably cost them their lives. This action gives an idea of the cult of death typical of the Tercio and also the desire for revenge that aroused the troops. An example is the present given to the Duchess of Victoria in gratitude for her efforts with the soldiers at the head of the Melilla Red Cross:a basket of red roses encircling the heads of two Harqueños.
Nador It was finally taken on September 17 by a strong contingent of 20,000 soldiers in three columns led by Generals Cabanellas, Sanjurjo and Federico Berenguer, brother of the high commissioner, also with artillery and aviation support, and the indigenous town was raided. On September 26, the supply convoy could not reach the Tizza position, which guarded the western pass 12 kilometers from Melilla, north of Gurugú, and two days later another attempt to get the convoy failed. The situation had to be resolved by the newly appointed General Commander of Melilla, General Cavalcanti, in a risky operation that earned him the nomination for his second Laureate, after the one he won with his famous Taxdirt ride in 1909, although he also aroused much criticism, when he exposed himself back on the front lines Silvestre-style:a commanding general for a supply operation in a position with secondary strategic value. His timid behavior in this scenario cost General Tuero and Colonels Sirvent and Lacanal their dismissal, to the great scandal of the Defense Juntas. The attitude had changed since Annual:there would be no consideration neither with the rebels nor with the incompetent military. For its part, the Spanish government, faced with the supportive reaction of the population that raised funds through collections and charitable acts for the acquisition of planes or tanks and even cigarettes, understood that its terror of another Tragic Week being repeated was unfounded and it modified the dirty policy practiced until then of haggling over human and material reinforcements, which were now being lavished. Finally they eliminated the “quota” system whereby a recruit could get rid of the front line in exchange for a sum of money.
The conquest of Sebt on October 2, despite its important fortification again by Cabanellas, Sanjurjo and Federico Berenguer, represented a turning point . Abd El Krim was there, having crossed the Kert on September 1 upon receiving the submission of the Kabyles in the area, but this defeat, together with the taking of Segangan and Atlanten on the southern slopes of Gurugú, forced him to flee hastily on horseback. He was about to be hit by a Spanish plane. Finally, on the 10th he waved the Spanish flag over Gurugú, to the great relief of the population of Melilla.
On October 14 the airfield and the Alcazaba of Zeluan were taken, returning to the positions of 1909. In the house "La Ina" the soldiers found the dantesque show of dozens of rotting corpses of Spanish civilians and soldiers, savagely tortured, some nailed to the wall, highlighting the bodies of Captain Carrasco and Lieutenant Fernández, tied back to back and burned alive.
The horror of Kert
From here, the goal was to reach the 1913 line and reach the Kert river , recovering the scenarios of the withdrawal of Annual. Mount Arruit was reached on October 24 and there the troops relived the horror:3,000 unburied and half-mummified bodies, many with their throats cut, disembowelled or stoned to death. The Harqueños had even worked hard to dig up the dead. When retracing the path to Kert, they also came across the remains of the Alcántara cavalry regiment, human corpses mixed with their cavalry in a spectral formation on the banks of the Igan river, where they perished protecting the withdrawal of General Navarro's column three months ago. .
November 11 capture of Yazanen and Typhasor forces Abd El Krim to retreat to the central Rif. On November 21, General Sanjurjo's troops occupied Ras Medua and on December 1 they reached Kadur, on the banks of the Kert. After taking Batel and Tistutin on December 21, the Spaniards crossed the Kert again the following day, supported by the Melilla squadrons that, for the first time in history, carried out a chain low flight to protect the columns. In a surprise operation, General Cabanellas entered Dar Drius, on the other side of the Kert, on January 10, 1922.
Ahead, the wild orography of the Rif awaited threateningly, where you do not walk a single meter horizontally, the unconquerable land that had already devoured General Silvestre. On July 15, 1922, General Berenguer, already in the eye of the hurricane due to the exhaustive investigation into the Disaster carried out by General Picasso , is relieved of the position of high commissioner by General Ricardo Burguete. A convulsive and bloody stage was closing in the protectorate to give way to another no less conflictive one that would lead to the first air-naval landing in history in the Bay of Alhucemas on September 8, 1925, which marked the end of the misnamed Republic of the Rif. by Abd El Krim. But that's another story.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Julio Albi de la Cuesta. “Around Annual”. Ed. Ministry of Defense. 2016.
- Juan Pando Awake. "Secret History of Annual". Editorial Topics of Today. 1999.
- Salvador Fontenla Ballesta. "The Moroccan War". The Sphere of Books. 2017.
- Mª Rosa de Madariaga. "In the ravine of the wolf". Publisher Alliance. 2005.
- Awake Ferro Contemporary Magazine “The disaster of Annual” nº 30 November-December 2018.