The Campaign in Morocco

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IN discussing the situation in Morocco, the question has repeatedly been debated during the past few months as to why the French, with the greatest modern army in existence in the world today, with a vast air superiority over any other nation, with the senior Marshal of France present in person in the theatre of operations, should have been unable to subdue a comparatively insignificant enemy in a campaign which, commencing the latter part of last April, has just terminated with the coming of the torrential rains of winter. This question is particularly enigmatical when it is known that a large Spanish army has been practically beseiged in three widely-separated, fortified areas on the eastern and western extremities of the Riff ever since their withdrawal from more advanced positions in the interior in 1924.

Recently General Boichut was asked this very question. The General commands the East Sector, or Nineteenth Corps, of the French Army with headquarters at Taza on the main road from Fez to Algiers. General Boichut answered that it was not a question of defeating Abd-el-Krim, but a question of defeating Nature, who has put all her advantages in favor of the Riffs. Mobile columns can push ahead with little difficulty but can only do so with safety if their rear and lines of communication are protected. The war, such as it is, is a war of transportation, for the greatest difficulty is the entire absence of roads. The mountainous country of the Riff is one of contrasts. In the dry season there is no water at all save in the few wells that are occasionally found. Advances must be from water hole to water hole. In the rainy season, the plains of the Ouergha and the Moulouya are a morass; water courses, dry the greater part of the year, are raging torrents. Woe betide the column cut off by rain in the Riff during the wet season. Starvation is certain for those fortunate enough to escape the incessant sniping of Krim's troops, who, accustomed to operate as individuals or in parties of two or three at most, have few wants and roam the country at will.

The almost insuperable difficulties of the terrain may perhaps be more clearly visualized by considering the numbers of troops engaged in and around a theatre of operations only 125 miles from east to west and only 37 miles from north to south...