Disaster of Annual

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The "Disaster of Annual" was a major military defeat suffered by the Spanish army on July 22, 1921 at Annual in northeastern Morocco during the Rif War. The defeat led to major political crises and a redefinition of Spanish colonial policy toward the Rif.

Spanish corpses at Monte Arruit.

In early 1921 the Spanish army commenced an offensive into north-eastern Morocco from the coastal regions previously held. The advance took place without the extended lines of communication being adequately established or the complete subjugation of the areas occupied.

On July 22, 1921, after five days of siege, Spanish forces garrisoning the encampment of Annual under the command of general Manuel Fernández Silvestre after the contiguous position of Igueriben had fallen, were attacked and destroyed by the Riffi irregular forces under the command of Mohammed Ben Abd el-Krim El Khattabi, a former functionary of the Spanish administration in the Office of Indigenous Affairs in Melilla and one of the leaders of the tribe of the Aith Ouriaghel (known as 'Aith Urriaguel' in Spanish).

General Silvestre disappeared and his remains were never found. The over-extended Spanish military structure in the Western Spanish Protectorate in Morocco crumbled. The majority of Spanish troops fled in panic: Cannons, rifles, ammunition, hospital equipment… everything was abandoned to allow a faster escape. The behaviour of many officers did not set any standard of heroism or professionalism.

Those few posts that tried to hold were massacred by the Riffian warriors. Only a few units maintained their military discipline and chain of command. Notably among those was the cavalry unit called Cazadores de Alcántara, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Fernando Primo de Rivera (who was wounded in the Monte Arruit siege and died shortly after).

The surviving Spanish troops retreated some 80 km to the encampment of Monte Arruit where a stand was attempted under the command of General Felipe Navarro y Ceballos-Escalera. This position was however surrounded and cut off from supplies. because of which, looking at the conditions, general Dámaso Berenguer Fusté, Spanish High Commissioner in the protectorate, authorized surrender on August 9. Nonetheless, the Rifeños did not respect the conditions of surrender and entered with blood and fire into the camp, killing many soldiers and taking General Navarro prisoner, along with some six hundred others.

Melilla was only some 40 km away, but was in no position to help: Melilla itself was almost defenceless and lacked properly trained troops. The refusal of the adjoining tribe of Beni Sicar to join Abdelkrim (and perhaps some luck) saved Melilla.

Spain quickly assembled its shock troops (La Legion and Regulares), which were deployed in the Eastern Zone of the Spanish Protectorate in Northern Morocco to save the city of Melilla from what would otherwise have been a certain fate.

In total, during the fighting took the lives of between 10,000 and 20,000 Spanish soldiers and about 1,000 Rifeños.

The political crisis brought about by this disaster led Indalecio Prieto to say in the Congress of Deputies: "We are at the most acute period of Spanish decadence. The campaign in Africa is a total failure, absolute, without extenuation, of the Spanish Army."

The Minister of War ordered the creation of an investigative commission, directed by the honored general Juan Picasso González, which developed the report known as the Expediente Picasso, which, despite calling out numerous military mistakes, owing to the obstructive action of various ministers and judges did not go so far as to lay political responsibility for the defeat, which popular opinion widely placed upon King Alfonso XIII, who according to several sources had encouraged Silvestre's irresponsible penetration of positions far from Melilla without having adequate defenses in his rear.

This crisis was one of the many that, over the course of the next decade, undermined the Spanish monarchy and led to the rise of the Second Spanish Republic.

The Disaster of Annual seems to have been consciously erased from the collective Spanish memory, but two novels written in the immediate aftermath give a very good idea of the events: Iman, by Ramón J. Sender; and La Ruta by Arturo Barea.