Definition of War of Ifni

It was something like “the war that never existed”, At least not officially, because it is not something that excited the Franco regime that then ruled in Spain, nor was it assumed by Morocco, which then emerged as the loser of that conflict.

The War of Ifni was a short-lived military conflict fought on horseback between 1957 and 1958 between Spanish forces and insurgents supported by Morocco, in the context of Moroccan claims on the Sahara and this Spanish colony in Africa.

Ifni was a small Spanish colonial enclave cloistered in the middle territory Moroccan, located on the coast before the Canary Islands, and with capital in Sidi Ifni, from which Spain became position in 1934, during the Second Republic, although it had been assigned to him in the Treaty of Wad-Ras of 1860.

In the mid-1950s, in Spain it was something like the last colony that the Spanish had in mind, while for Morocco (independent in 1956) represented an affront for constituting a territory of the former colonizer, nestled in the middle of its country.

The territory was not particularly rich and therefore did not have any kind of appeal. His only one maintenance Fishing was economical, although this was not very good either.

To recover Ifni, Morocco did not want to engage in a conventional war for which it was not prepared, so it opted for what today we would know as a “hybrid” war strategy: facilitating the passage to the territory of irregular groups armed.

These "liberation forces" in Moroccan terminology ("armed bands" for the Franco regime) launched their action on October 23, 1957, sparking skirmishes with the outposts Spanish people.

The Spanish forces seemed to fall back into the same error of the strategy of the block used more than three decades earlier in Morocco, and which had caused serious casualties to the army.

Spain sent reinforcements, but could not count on the most modern war material supplied by the US army.

This was due to the fact that the agreement with the United States limited the use of war material ceded by that country to be used in the peninsula, and not in the colonies (status that then had Ifni). Such equipment included the M47 Patton tanks.

Instead, the Spanish soldiers had to fight, for example, wearing espadrilles, and with the air support of some old Heinkel He 111 (and possibly its derivative of manufacturing Spanish CASA 2.111), a model that almost entailed greater risk for its crew and its own forces, than for the enemy. The Franco regime, which silenced the confrontation with its public opinion, did not want to dedicate modern means to it.

However, the Spanish forces had the professionals of the Legion, supported by replacement forces from the metropolis, a set far superior to that of the enemy forces.

The Moroccans from Ifni included in the Spanish troops were discharged shortly before the start of fighting, as they were unreliable for the Spanish officers, although it is not certain that they were everyone.

Like other colonial powers, Spain had based much of its dominance in its colonies on troops recruited from the natives themselves. In the case of Ifni, the Spaniards also knew how to win the confidence of the locals, prohibiting, for example, Christian proselytism.

However, at the time there was a great Moroccan nationalist agitation, and this led to the fact that the Spanish officers did not just show confidence in the native colonial troops.

The operations also splashed into the Spanish Sahara, located south of the Ifni colony.

On November 23, the offensive was centered on Sidi Ifni. The Moroccan irregulars cut off communications between the capital and the main outposts, isolating them.

Sidi Ifni is attacked, but the Spanish garrison resists with courage. Other positions, such as Tiliuin, T’Zelata, are also raided. At the same time, Spanish positions in the Sahara, such as El Aaiún, are also attacked.

Finally, the Moroccan offensive in the Sahara was thwarted by the joint intervention of Spain and France.

Despite this, Morocco did not leave the conflict empty-handed, since it managed to surrender, by of the Spanish authorities, of the strip of northern territory of the Spanish Sahara, known as Cabo Juby. Ifni will continue in Spanish hands until 1969, the year in which the colony will be returned to Morocco.

The cost of the conflict will be about 200 dead and 300 wounded for Spain (more casualties not specified on the French side), for a few thousand undetermined casualties on the Moroccan side. Everything, for a piece of semi-sterile land ...

The sensation among the veterans of that contest is one of official abandonment.

The government Franco never recognized the war, and censorship silenced the news about it, which reached the public opinion in a trickle, which only he learned that there were "skirmishes" in the area, attributed to the confrontation with parties of little more than bandits, which was what the regime wanted to sell.

It was not only until more recently that the story and testimony of those who fought in that conflict, and that Spanish public opinion has found out what happened.

Photos: Fotolia - Kajzr / KarSol

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