Miguel Primo de Rivera was not a typical dictator; Spanish had its light and its dark. A soldier of family and heart, he was convinced that the Protectorate had to be abandoned for having become a sink of blood, sweat and money for the country. And that, despite the fact that he had won the Laureate Cross of San Fernando over there. For this reason, in 1924 he organized a ‘rock star’ style tour of the red-and-gold possessions located on the other side of the Mediterranean: to convince the more Africanist high command to assume that it was lost and that it was better to abandon the extreme vanguard. The Riffs were too many, they were struggling in combat and did not seem willing to surrender.
With these ideas, he arrived at the Legion base in Ben Tieb in mid-July 1924. In his head it would be to arrive, give a convincing speech and leave. But it didn’t happen that way. In front of him he ran into some soldiers who, for three years, had shed blood for Spain and were not willing to leave the area without fighting. And, at their head, the then lieutenant colonel Francisco Franco, a seasoned and rebellious soldier who was going to give him a thousand and one headaches. After listening to the dictator’s defeatist comments, the leader of that special unit forged in 1921 responded angrily: his boys would not move from there. From there the fuss broke out. Shouts, punches on the table and some threat to pull out the gun.
“The news had reached us, the journalists, through confidentiality, that it was an act of indiscipline on the part of the Tercio forces,” wrote reporter Emilio Herrero years later. As explained to ABC Gerardo Munoz Lorente, author of ‘The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera’ (Almuzara), the worst thing was not that mess, but that Franco and his men had an ‘ace’ up their sleeve with which to convince the dictator: kidnap him, put him in a plane and take you to the Chafarinas Islands. For this they had the complicity of the aviator Ricardo Burguete Reparaz and the commander Jose Enrique Varela Iglesias; both recently arrived from Tauima, headquarters of the Melilla Bombardment Squadron.
-Why did Primo de Rivera long to withdraw the troops from Morocco?
Primo de Rivera played with ambiguity in the manifesto he drew up during the coup. He was not clear with the solutions that he proposed to solve the acute problems that the country suffered; among them, the war in Morocco. In principle, he took a step back from his traditional abandonment of the region to get the support of all the military. And that he had been a firm defender that it was necessary to leave the area despite having participated in the campaign in Africa and having won the Laureate of San Fernando. He was convinced that the troops had to be withdrawn from the Spanish protectorate.
In the end, already as dictator, and a few months after coming to power, he retraced his steps and approved a plan in which he ordered a withdrawal to the Ceuta-Tetouan/Tangier-Larache line and to reduce the forces in the zone of 125,000 to 50,000 military. He considered it an unnecessary war. We must remember that he even lost two very important posts, the General Captaincy of Valencia and Madridfor defending the possibility of negotiating with Great Britain the exchange of some places like Ceuta.
-What was the objective of this curious plan?
It was an outburst motivated by the anger of the Africanist military led by Franco. They were in agreement with the existence of a military government, but not with the withdrawal. What they were trying to do was convince the dictator by any means to change his withdrawal order to one not only to maintain the troops, but also to go on the offensive. Although they knew that it was very difficult because the Spanish Army suffered defeat after defeat and it seemed almost impossible to maintain the positions in the extreme vanguard. It was a measure of coercion, rather than a coup as such.
How did this plan come about?
It all happened in July 1924, when Primo de Rivera carried out a trip through the eastern part of the Protectorate to try to convince the officers and chiefs of the Army that the troops had to be withdrawn. In Ben Tieb, which was part of his journey, he had planned to give a speech at the La Legión barracks, which Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Franco commanded at the time. But he found that there was an environment that was very contrary to his criteria, in addition to high indiscipline.
Primo de Rivera, after a military conference in 1919
-How was the reception of Primo de Rivera?
That was a tremendous clash in which the forces of the Tercio de La Legión showed in a very vehement way their discrepancy with the criteria of the dictator. Franco gave a very harsh speech that Primo de Rivera responded with shouting, threats and the possibility that there would be, according to Sanjurjo, an exchange of shots. Some soldiers with their pistols were even prohibited from entering the pavilion where the act was taking place.
Why was this news not known?
For many causes. To begin with, the speech was very violent in words. Still, Primo stood his ground and demanded that he be obeyed. The leader of La Legión offered his resignation, but the dictator did not accept it. In this sense he was very skillful because, if he had said yes, he would have created a martyr. The Directorate prevented the news from coming to light because of the problems it would generate. That is why it has gone unnoticed by the chronicles. Some journalists were there, but they were forbidden to publish it. Among them, the United Press reporter Emilio Herrero and the chronicler Víctor Ruíz Albéniz stand out. He General Sanjurjo and the Count of Romanones they also recounted the fact in their memoirs.
Didn’t the dictator suspect anything?
Primo de Rivera was struck by the fact that there were pilots at the base. He was especially surprised by the presence of the aviator captain Ricardo Burguete, who had landed with his plane and several soldiers from his squadron to carry out the kidnapping. The dictator asked him what he was doing there, and he limited himself to answering that he had suffered a breakdown and that he had been forced to descend. Everything was prepared: if he did not give in, he would end up in the Chafarinas Islands until he changed his criteria and opinion about the withdrawal of the Army. In the end, however, they backed down.
-How did your abandonist ideas change in favor of a definitive offensive against the Rif in the Landing of Al Hoceima?
Primo de Rivera changed his mind regarding the abandonment of the troops as a result of a strategic error by Abd el-Krim. The Riffian leader attacked the French army between the spring and summer of 1925, opening a second front that, in the end, ended up denting his troops. That led him to reduce his offensive on the Protectorate. In addition, it caused a Franco-Spanish alliance that, until then, had not occurred due to political differences. That pact materialized in the Landing of Al Hoceima, which had been planned for years. That was the beginning of the end of the resistance and of the recently proclaimed Republic of the Rif. Primo, even so, showed some resistance to penetrate North Africa, but was encouraged by Sanjurjo and the Gauls to attack and reach the enemy headquarters. The conclusion was that he did not change by his own decision, but by the succession of events.