A newspaper correspondent,
writing from Wazzan behind the French lines,
thus began his daily despatch on the
Moroccan War (TIME, May 11, et seq.) :
"One requires no map in order to follow
operations in this important sector. One can
install oneself comfortably—except for the
flies, whose buzzing might be taken for
Abd-el-Krim's air service —on a shady cafe
terrace and drink cool beer while a friendly
French officer explains the situation with a
magnificent panorama of mountains stretched
out before one for orientation."
The war last week was slack.
The two armies pecked at each other, but did
no serious damage.
Practically the whole valley
of the Wergha is dominated by the
surrounding mountains, which lie
considerably to the north of the Great Atlas
range and which rarely reach 5,000 feet. The
territory of the Riff, which is now
considerably overrun, lies in the central
hinterland of the Spanish zone of Morocco at
the extreme northwest of the African
continent.
Master of the terrain is
Abd-el-Krim, whom his followers have
proclaimed "Sultan." He knows that
he cannot beat the French, but he also knows
that the French cannot beat him without
risking far more than he, Abd-el-Krim,
thinks they will. This attitude is accounted
for by the comparative security which his
steep mountains provide him. Troops cannot
be moved across them except through winding
passes which the Riffian tribesmen dominate.
Artillery and bombs are almost useless; for
they cannot remove mountains of rock. But
against the attackers the tribesmen bring to
bear all manner of weapons from cannon to
big stones which they dynamite down on to
the enemy.
To the northwest and
northeast of the Riff, Abd-el-Krim fights
the Spaniards, whom he despises. He has
defeated them so often that he now loses no
sleep on their account. To the south,
principally along the Wergha Valley, which
is in French Morocco, are the French. That
is a different problem; for in French
Morocco is the French Resident General,
Marshal Louis Lyautey.
All Morocco (known also as
the She-reefian Empire) is nominally under
the technically autocratic sway of Sultan
Mulai Yusef. In the Spanish zone, where the
Riff is situate, Abd-el-Krim is the most
potent figure. In the French zone—by far
the greater part of Morocco—the greatest
man is not the Sultan, who is a mere shadow,
but Marshal Lyautey. This soldier, who has
won fame solely by his invaluable work in
Morocco, is the embodiment of
French power there. He is
more. He actually governs Morocco for the
Sultan, and as the Sultan is in theory an
absolute monarch, Marshal Lyautey is par
excellence a beneficent despot. His word is
law. Yet, he always takes care to treat the
Sultan's subjects with great tact. He has
infinite patience, but, driven to act, he
moves with merciless rapidity. The Arabs,
who almost always admire a brave and wise
man, admire Marshal Lyautey; for he never
fails to punish the culpable, no matter how
difficult it may be, and he never fails to
pay the utmost respect to native traditions
and beliefs. In that he is both brave and
wise. All this does Abd-el-Krim know.
Consider the great man in
the Riff: Abd-el-Krim, or Abdel-Krim, was
born about the year 1883. Little is known of
his early life, except that his father, also
Abd-el-Krim, was a cadi (pronounced cah-dee),
or lawgiver, at Melilla. Abd-el-Krim Jr.
followed his father, studied law, became a
loyal subject of the Sultan.
In contrast to paunchy,
swarthy, massive Raisuli, who recently died
while a prisoner in the Riff,* Abd-el-Krim
is of medium height, a Berber—that is, a
descendant of the Visigoths. Like Raisuli,
he is liberally bewhiskered, the color of
his hair being several shades lighter. He is
also an impressive man and looks what he is
not: a man of high birth. But he has what a
correspondent calls "an impressive
refinement of manner." He speaks his
native Berber dialect, Arabic, fluent
Spanish and a little French. Men, sometimes
his enemies, call him able.
During the War, he was under
suspicion for favoring the Germans, and
under that cloud he remains today. A break
in his career occurred when the Spanish
arrested him, probably in 1917, for
seditious conspiracy against Spain. He was
thrown into prison; but later escaped,
seriously injuring his left leg in so doing.
Straightway he went to the Riff, a
mountainous territory to the east end of the
Spanish zone in Morocco. To his own tribe,
the Beni Warriageli, he told stories of
Spanish misrule, dwelling upon the
Spaniards' cruelty and incapacity. He
pictured them as exploiters of the country
and called upon his own tribe to free the
Riff from their accursed sway. To a man the
Beni Warriagelis joined him. Thus began the
resistance of the Riffians to the Spanish
which resulted two years later (1921) in the
catastrophe of Melilla, the battle which
freed all the Riff and inflicted a colossal
defeat on the Spanish forces, a defeat from
which the Spanish have never recovered.
In carrying out his
campaign, Abd-el-Krim has not been alone.
His brother, Muhammad, a qualified engineer,
is his able lieutenant. His cabinet, or
Council of Wazirs, contains his
brother-in-law, Sidi Muhammad bal Hadj Hitmi,
as a sort of Premier. The War Minister is
Hamid Boudra, whose very shadow is venerated
throughout the Riff. Muhammad Azarkhan is
the astute Foreign Minister extremely able
and well educated. Abd-el-Salam el-Khtabi
and Liazid bal Hadj are respectively
Ministers of Finance and Interior. All of
these men are brilliant in no ordinary sense
of the word, as witness the efficiency of
their administration, which shows itself in
the able way the war against first Spain,
then against Spain and France, has been
conducted.
About the time of his
triumph at Melilla, Abd-el-Krim posed as the
President of the Riff Republic; but things
have changed since those days. He carried
the war against the Spanish outside of the
Riff, and, desiring a better frontier for
his State, as he calls it, he warred against
the French. It has been said that he
attacked the French to force a resettlement
of Morocco; this is probably true; but it
made necessary a larger army. The question
of soldiers was something Abd-el-Krim never
had to worry about. The fame of his
victories spread far and wide with
considerable exaggeration. Gradually the
various tribes began to look upon him as the
soldier of Islam who was taking up the sword
against the infidel Spanish and French.
Abd-el-Krim was fighting, however, primarily
for the independence of the Riff territory,
but, willy-nilly, he was forced to fight for
Islam. Perhaps, the role was not altogether
displeasing; for at length he was proclaimed
Sultan, his brother was made heir with the
title of Prince and the republic of the Riff
has given way to the sultanate of the Riff.
No doubt, too, that Abd-el-Krim calls with
the rest of the Faithful to Allah for
guidance and victory against the enemy.
Abd-el-Krim is of course not
eligible for a royal title, that honor being
confined according to Muhammadan law to
direct descendants of the Prophet. It seems
unlikely that he desires in any way to
undermine the spiritual authority of Mulai
Yusef who sits in the shade of the
Shereefian Umbrella at Rabat or at his other
capitals. But he undoubtedly does resent any
interference with the internal affairs of
the Riff country and, provided that is
assured to him with adequate boundaries as a
guarantee, he may well become as good a
Shereef as the Empire can boast.
*According to The Times
(London"! of May 6, Raisuli died toward
the end of April. For some time before he
had been afflicted with dropsy (TIME, Feb.
16).
