Rif Fighters Rout a Spanish Army at Annual

In the early months of 1921, the Spanish Army began an ambitious military offensive across northeastern Morocco. Under the leadership of General Manuel Fernandez Silvestre, Spanish units pushed rapidly westward from Melilla into the central Rif, seeking to secure a lasting foothold on the shores of Al Hoceima bay. The rapid forward march proceeded without establishing protected communications or adequate supply routes. Rather than building defensible fortifications, the army relied on dozens of isolated blockhouses, known as blocaos, which held small garrisons far from water sources on exposed high ground. By mid-January, Silvestre had established his forward headquarters at the village of Annual, roughly sixty kilometres west of the coastal stronghold of Melilla.

Opposition coalesced under Abd el-Krim, an influential leader of the Aith Ouriaghel tribe and a former translator in the Spanish Office of Indigenous Affairs. Beginning in June 1921, Rifian fighters launched sharp assaults on forward outposts. On 1 June, fighters overran a newly built post on Mount Abarran, whose garrison of about 250 men was mostly made up of Moroccan auxiliaries, many of whom deserted. Rifians then placed another position at Igueriben under siege. Deprived of water and pounded by artillery, the garrison at Igueriben collapsed on 21 July during a desperate evacuation under heavy fire. Of about three hundred men, only a handful survived; accounts range from about a dozen to thirty-three.