Abd el-Krim (1880,
AjdirAjdir is a small city in Morocco near Al Hoceima. It was the capital of the Republic of the Rif from 1922 to 1926 under the leadership of Abd el-Krim .-See also:*Republic of the Rif*Aith Ouriaghel...
–February 6, 1963,
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
) (
Mulay Abdelkrim, full name:
Muhammad Ibn 'Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi , was the
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
leader of the
RifThe Rif is a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco, stretching from Cape Spartel and Tangier in the west to Ras Kebdana and the Moulouya River in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the river of Ouargha in the south.It is part of the Cordillera Bética that also...
, a Berber area of northeastern
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
. He became the leader of a wide scale armed resistance movement against
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
colonial rule in
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
. His guerilla tactics are known to have inspired
Ho Chi MinhHồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary and statesman who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam .Hồ led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing...
,
Mao ZedongMao Zedong was a Chinese revolutionary, political theorist and Communist leader. He led the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976...
, and
Che GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che, or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution...
.
Early life
Born in
AjdirAjdir is a small city in Morocco near Al Hoceima. It was the capital of the Republic of the Rif from 1922 to 1926 under the leadership of Abd el-Krim .-See also:*Republic of the Rif*Aith Ouriaghel...
,
MoroccoMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
, to Abdelkrim El-Khattabi (Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi), a
qadiQadi is a judge ruling in accordance with the sharia, Islamic religious law. Because Islam makes no distinction between religious and secular domains, qadis traditionally have jurisdiction over all legal matters involving Muslims...
(Islamic judge) of the Ait Yusuf clan of the Aith Uriaghel (or Waryaghar) tribe. Abd el-Krim was educated both in traditional
zaouiaZaouia , also spelled zawiya, zawiyah, zaouiya, zaouïa zwaya, etc, is a Maghrebi and West African term for an Islamic religious school or monastery, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term "madrassa"...
s and in Spanish
Secondary educationSecondary education is the stage of education following primary school. Secondary education is generally the final stage of compulsory education. However, secondary education in some countries includes a period of compulsory and a period of non-compulsory education. The next stage of education is...
for attending Spanish
High schoolHigh school is the name used in some parts of the world, particularly in Scotland, Northern America and Oceania, to describe an institution that provides all or part of secondary education...
s, continuing his education at the ancient University of Qarawiyin in Fez and later at the
University of SalamancaThe University of Salamanca , located in the town of Salamanca, west of Madrid, is the oldest university in Spain , and one of the oldest in Europe. It was founded by Alfonso IX of León in 1218 as a "General School"...
. His father, Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi, later on his partner in battle, also received a Spanish education studying mine engineering in Madrid. Both spoke fluent Spanish. After his studies, in 1906, Abd El Krim was sent to
MellilaMellilä is a former municipality of Finland. It was merged to the town of Loimaa on 1 January 2009.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Finland Proper region. The municipality had a population of 1,254 and covered an area of 110.62 km² of which 0.10 km² is...
by his father. He worked there as a teacher and translator (until 1913) and became journalist for the Spanish newspaper
Telegrama del Rif (1906-1915).
First world war
He entered the
Spanish governmentThe Politics of Spain take place in the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy, whereby the Monarch is the Head of State and the President of the Government is the head of government in a multi-party system. Executive power is vested in the government...
al structure, and was appointed chief qadi for
MelillaMelilla is an autonomous Spanish city located on the Mediterranean, on the north coast of North Africa. It was regarded as a part of Málaga province prior to 14 March 1995, when the city's Statute of Autonomy was passed.Melilla was a free port before Spain joined the European Union. As of 2008 it...
in 1914. During the war Abd el-Krim was punished by the Spanish government for anticolonial activities (
ConspiracyIn a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....
with the German consul Dr. Walter Zechlin (1879 - 1962)). He was imprisoned in
ChefchaouenChefchaouen or Chaouen is a city in northwest Morocco. It is the chief town of the province of the same name, and is noted for its buildings in shades of blue....
from 1916 to 1917. At the end of the war, Abd el-Krim briefly resumed his duties at the newspaper, but soon, fearful of extradition to the French for punishment, he returned to his home at
AjdirAjdir is a small city in Morocco near Al Hoceima. It was the capital of the Republic of the Rif from 1922 to 1926 under the leadership of Abd el-Krim .-See also:*Republic of the Rif*Aith Ouriaghel...
in January 1919. He was alarmed by the appearance of Spanish agents in Beni Waryaghil territory and was determined to fight for tribal independence. A more immediate provocation was the loss of his pension and his exclusion by the Spanish from an informal mining consortium. The following year, Abd el-Krim, together with his father and brother, began a war of rebellion against the Spanish. His goal was now to unite the tribes of the Rif into an independent
Republic of the RifThe Republic of the Rif , was created in September 1921, when the people of the Rif revolted and declared their independence from Spanish occupation as well as from the Moroccan sultan.Its capital city was Ajdir, its currency the Rif Republic Riffan, its national...
.
Guerrilla leadership
In 1921, as a by-product of their efforts to destroy the power of a local brigand,
RaisuliMulai Ahmed el Raisuni was the Sharif of the Riffian Berber tribe in Morocco at the turn of the 19th/20th Century, and considered by many to be the rightful heir to the throne of Morocco...
, Spanish troops approached the unoccupied areas of the Rif. Abd-el-Krim sent their General,
Manuel Fernández SilvestreManuel Fernández Silvestre y Patinga and Pantiga was a Spanish military general.He was the son of the lieutenant colonel of artillery Victor Fernandez and of Doña Eleuteria Silvestre...
, a warning that if they crossed the Amekran River he would consider it an act of war. Silvestre is said to have laughed, and shortly afterwards set up a military post across the river to establish an outpost at the hills of
AbaránAbarán is a Spanish municipality located in the province of Murcia. It is situated in the Valley of Ricote on the banks of the River Segura 40 km from the city of Murcia. It belongs to the parish of Santiago. It has a population of 12,917 . Abarán belongs to the comarca of Vega Alta del Segura, the...
. In June 1921 a sizable Riffian force attacked this post killing 179 Spanish troops of the estimated 250. Soon afterwards, Abd el-Krim directed his forces to attack the Spanish lines at
Annual (Morocco)Annual is a settlement in northeastern Morocco about 60 km west of Melilla. There, during the Rif War or War of Melilla, on July 22, 1921, the Spanish army suffered a grave military defeat, known as the "Battle of Annual"....
with great success — in three weeks 8,000 Spanish troops were killed, and the Spanish Army of 13,000 was forced to retreat to the coast by only 3,000 Rifains. During the attack on Annual, General Silvestre either committed suicide or was killed defending the post. This colossal victory established Abd el-Krim as a genius of guerrilla warfare.
The embarrassing defeat of Spanish forces at Annual created a political crisis that subsequently led to General
Miguel Primo de RiveraMiguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquess of Estella was a Spanish dictator, aristocrat, and a military official who was appointed Prime Minister by the King and who for seven years was a dictator, ending the turno system of alternating parties.- Early years :Miguel Primo de Rivera was born...
's coup d'état of September 13, 1923, the installation of a military dictatorship (1923-1930), and the eventual collapse of the Spanish Monarchy in April 1931.
By 1924, the Spanish had been forced to retreat to their possessions along the Moroccan coast. France, which in any case laid claim to territory in the southern Rif, realized that allowing another North African colonial power to be defeated by natives would set a dangerous precedent for their own territories, and after Abd el-Krim invaded French Morocco in April 1925, entered the fray. In 1925, a French force under Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain and a Spanish army, with a combined total of 250,000 soldiers, began operations against the Rif Republic. Intense combat persisted for ten months, but eventually the combined French and Spanish armies — using, among other weapons,
mustard gas against the populationDuring the Third Rif War in Spanish Morocco between 1921 and 1927, the Spanish Army of Africa dropped chemical warfare agents in an attempt to put down the Riffian Berber rebellion led by guerrilla leader Abd el-Krim....
— defeated the forces of Abd el-Krim. On May 26, 1926 Abd el-Krim surrendered to the French at his then headquarters of Targuist.
Exile
As a consequence, he was exiled to the island of
RéunionRéunion is an island located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas départements of France...
(a French territory in the Indian Ocean) from 1926 to 1947, where he was "given a comfortable estate and generous annual subsidiary." Abd el-Krim was later given permission to live in the south of France, after being released for health concerns, he however succeeded in gaining asylum in Egypt. Ahmed Belbachir Haskouri, the right-hand man of the caliph of Spanish Morocco, negotiated the last phase of Abdelkrim's exile in Egypt. Belbachir ensured that Abdelkrim received a stipend from the Arab League and that the latter was able to continue the struggle for independence for the Maghreb from Egypt. In Egypt, Abd el Krim presided over the Liberation Committee for the
ArabArab people or Arabs are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, cultural or genealogical grounds...
MaghrebThe Maghreb , also rendered Maghrib , meaning "place of sunset" or "western" in Arabic, is a region in North Africa. The term is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but in older Arabic usage pertained only to the area of the three countries between the high ranges of the...
, and where he died in 1963, just after seeing his hopes of a Maghreb independent of colonial powers completed by the independence of
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
.
Further reading
- David S. Woolman, Rebels in the Rif: Abd el Krim and the Rif Rebellion, 1968
- Charles Richard Pennell, A Country with a Government and a Flag: The Rif War in Morocco, 1921-1926, 1986
- Abdelkrim, Mémoires d'Abd el Krim / recueillis par J. Roger-Mathieu, Paris, Librairie des Champs Elysées, 1927
- Abdelkrim, Mémoires II, la Crise franco-marocaine, 1955—1956, Paris, Plon, 1984
- F. Tamburini, I gas nella guerra del Rif, in "Storia Militare", n.145, a.XIII, settembre 2005
External links