Battle of El Herri
32°51′27″N 05°37′21″W / 32.85750°N 5.62250°W
Battle of El Herri | |
---|---|
Part of the Khénifra, Morocco | |
Result | Zaian victory |
5 officers and 171 men wounded[3]
The Battle of El Herri (also known as Elhri) was fought between
Laverdure became frustrated with the lack of action and, on 13 November, led almost his entire garrison in an attack on the Zaian encampment at El Herri. The attack initially went well, with his artillery and cavalry clearing the tribesmen from the camp, looting the Zaian tents and capturing two of Hammou's wives. However, the French encountered a significant Zaian force during its withdrawal to Khénifra. This force engaged the French with harassing fire, forcing them to move only under the cover of their artillery. Laverdure then ordered his wounded back to Khénifra with a guard of a company of infantry, which were joined by large numbers of other troops who broke ranks to join the column. Whilst making a river crossing, Laverdure's rear guard and artillery were overrun and annihilated. Laverdure's remaining troops then formed a square and fought a desperate last stand against several thousand tribesmen before they were also overrun and killed.
The French losses were significant: some 623 North African, Senegalese and French soldiers (including Laverdure) were killed and 176 wounded. The Zaian lost at least 182 men killed. The column of wounded reached Khénifra just ahead of pursuing Zaian forces and the town came under siege. Lyautey was dismayed at Laverdure's actions and was briefly of the opinion that he had cost him the war. However, a relief force reached Khénifra within a few days and the situation stabilised. The Zaian War lasted until 1921 when negotiations secured the submission of much of the confederation to French rule and a military offensive pushed the remainder into the High Atlas mountains.
Background
France's
French attempts to persuade Hammou to submit had failed and in May 1914 Lyautey authorised General
Successfully repulsing additional attacks on Khénifra, Henrys thought he had the upper hand, having proven that the reduced French forces could resist the tribesmen.[14] The Zaian were now contained within a triangle formed by the Oum er Rbia, the Serrou river and the Atlas mountains and were already in dispute with neighbouring tribes over the best wintering land.[14]
Battle
Laverdure's attack
Laverdure had been in Khénifra for five months when Hammou set up camp at
However Laverdure decided to disobey his orders to remain in Khénifra and marched on El Herri with almost the entire garrison.
Laverdure's column reached El Herri at dawn and found the encampment of 100 tents.[14] Most of the Zaian men were out of camp at the time, leaving behind the non-combatants, and Laverdure achieved complete surprise.[18] The first that many of the Zaian knew of the attack was when his artillery shells began exploding amongst the tents.[15] This was followed up by a cavalry charge which cleared the camp but was halted by a group of tribesmen who had rallied on a hilltop to the south and inflicted "numerous losses" on the horsemen.[2] Laverdure had to send in his infantry to remove these Zaians, before looting the encampment.[15] Hammou escaped in time but two of his wives were captured before the French headed back to Khénifra at around 8.30 am, leaving the looting to tribesmen of the Aït Ichkern, formerly Hammou's allies, who assumed he was now beaten.[15][16]
Zaian counterattack
Urged on by the shrieking of their womenfolk, all of them, even any who before may have been somewhat hesitant, appear all round the horizon; onward, through the rain of machine-gun fire and shells they rush, wedging in and out through the underbrush and rocks until they are right up onto the French units already hampered by having to carry their dead, whom they must preserve from mutilation, and their wounded whom they must save. In 1914, at El Herri, an entire French column was thus almost totally annihilated.
A French staff officer describing the loss of the column at El Herri.[19]
The return to Khénifra was initially hampered by attacks by small groups of tribesmen who were beaten off, but discovered the relatively small number of troops in the French column.[15] Word was passed to others and soon a force, estimated at 5,000 by the French, was assembled.[2][15] These men consisted of almost the entire Zaian tribe and elements of the Mrabtin, Aït Harkat, Aït Ischak and Aït Ichkern (the latter, seeing the French falling back, had changed allegiance once more).[17][20] Zaian tactics were to harass the flanks and rear of the column and to occupy any convenient high ground for sniping attacks.[19] The French found they could not move in safety without heavy covering fire from the artillery, which was reduced in effectiveness by the dispersed positions of the Zaian tribesmen and their use of cover.[2][19] Hammou's nephew, Moha ou Akka, led a force of several thousand tribesmen around the French to cut off their route back to Khénifra.[16]
At this point Laverdure ordered one company of his Senegalese infantry to leave the column to accompany a convoy of wounded soldiers to Khénifra.[2][21] Many of his other troops, seeing the Senegalese leaving, broke ranks and followed in panic.[21] Laverdure attempted to continue his withdrawal but, just having crossed the Chbouka river, his rearguard was surrounded and attacked repeatedly from all sides, being quickly overrun.[2][21] The gun batteries soon suffered the same fate, their crews also being killed.[2] The Zaian assembled on the ridges surrounding the remaining French troops, who had formed a defensive square, before launching a final attack with "several thousand" men.[2][18][21] This attack lasted just a few minutes and, after a desperate struggle, the square was broken and the remainder of the column was wiped out.[2][18] The Zaian chased down and killed any of the survivors who attempted to hide in the scrub.[21]
The wounded and their escort struggled into Khénifra at about noon, narrowly outpacing the Zaian who had stopped to loot the bodies of the French dead.[2][3] These men, numbering 171 men and five officers wounded and 426 men and five officers able bodied, were the only French survivors of the battle.[2] A total of 623 French troops had died, along with at least 182 of the Zaian.[3][4] French losses amounted to 218 Algerian or Tunisian Tirailleurs, 210 French soldiers and 33 French officers, 125 Senegalese Tirailleurs and 37 Moroccan Goums killed.[1] The French officers suffered the highest casualty rate of any group with 90% of them being killed or wounded (including Laverdure who died in the final attack); four of the five unwounded officers belonged to the cavalry.[1][3][22] Around 65% of the entire force had been killed or wounded and the French were forced to abandon 4 machine guns, 630 small arms, 62 horses, 56 mules, and all of their artillery; plus camping equipment and personal belongings.[1][23] Hammou took much of this with him when he escaped to the mountains of the Middle Atlas.[24]
Aftermath
The disaster left Captain Pierre Kroll as the senior officer of the remnants of the Khénifra garrison, some three companies of tirailleurs (one of which was an ad hoc unit made up from the partially equipped and badly shaken survivors of the battle).[2][15][21] Having secured the defences he immediately telegraphed Lyautey and Henrys to inform them of events, the first they had heard of Laverdure's foray.[15] Lyautey was briefly of the opinion that the event would cause the loss of the whole of Morocco.[18] The next morning Zaian horsemen appeared on the hilltops to the south and east of the city.[2] Khénifra soon came under constant siege from the tribes.[18]
Henrys left Fez for Meknes from which he telegraphed Lyautey promising to "strike hard and fast" so that the "Laverdure disaster" did not threaten the French position in Morocco.
As a show of force, Henrys led excursions from Khénifra to El Herri on 19 and 20 November.
The Zaian war continued for many years after El Herri with Henrys changing tactics from negotiation and bribery to "submit or starve".[29] Subsequent victories in the Middle Atlas restored the French image of superiority in force and led to increasing submissions and the withdrawal of the Zaian deeper into the mountains.[29] By 1917, the French had managed to establish a military road straight through the Middle Atlas, limiting the free movement of the Zaian.[24] The end of the war came through political rather than military means with Hammou's sons submitting, on his advice, to the French in June 1920.[30] Their submission persuaded 3,000 tents of Zaian to follow and within six weeks just 2,500 tents remained opposed to French rule.[31] Hammou was killed in Spring 1921 by a Berber war party led by Hassan and soon after a combined French and Berber attack on Bekrit defeated the last remaining Zaian force, ending the seven-year-long war.[30][32] After the war, French expansion in the area continued and they brought almost the entire Middle Atlas under their control by June 1922.[32]
Reasons for French defeat
Though they had previously held him in high regard, Lyautey and Henrys blamed Laverdure for this major defeat, with the latter describing the Lieutenant-Colonel's march from Khénifra as a "poorly prepared and poorly executed" "act of indiscipline".
It is thought that Laverdure's actions may have been influenced by a school of thought advocated by General
Legacy
The battle was a shock to the French who had not expected the tribes to get the better of a well-armed column. Lyautey himself said that "in our entire colonial history there has never been a case of the destruction of such an important force, of the loss of [almost] all its officers ..., of the disappearance of so much materiel and booty of war".[20] The battle has been described variously as the worst ever defeat of French forces in Morocco,[18][22][30] the worst in North Africa[3] and one of the worst in the French colonies.[23][27] The heavy losses suffered at El Herri overshadowed the planning of French military policy for Morocco during the First World War.[18]
Today the battle is celebrated by the
See also
- The Battle of Annual, a similar battle but on a much larger scale during the Rif War in which a Spanish colonial force was defeated by Moroccan irregulars.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hoisington 1995, p. 76.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Hoisington 1995, p. 75.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k French Embassy in Morocco, Le Maroc sous domination coloniale (PDF) (in French), archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2010, retrieved 29 November 2009
- ^ a b c d e McDougall 2003, p. 43.
- ^ Burke 1975, p. 439.
- ^ Gershovich 2005, p. 100.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 63.
- ^ a b Hoisington 1995, p. 65.
- ^ Bimberg 1999, p. 9.
- ^ a b Gershovich 2005, p. 101.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 67.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 70.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 72.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hoisington 1995, p. 74.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Bimberg 1999, p. 11.
- ^ a b c Windrow 2010, p. 427.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Hoisington 1995, p. 77.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gershovich 2005, p. 103.
- ^ a b c Military Intelligence Division, General Staff 1925, p. 403.
- ^ a b c Hoisington 1995, p. 79.
- ^ a b c d e f g Windrow 2010, p. 428.
- ^ a b Jaques 2007, p. 330.
- ^ a b c Lázaro 1988, p. 98.
- ^ a b Bimberg 1999, p. 12.
- ^ Windrow & Chappell 1999, p. 10.
- ^ a b c Hoisington 1995, p. 78.
- ^ a b Burke 1975, p. 442.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 80.
- ^ a b Hoisington 1995, p. 82.
- ^ a b c Hart 2000.
- ^ Hoisington 1995, p. 89.
- ^ a b Hoisington 1995, p. 90.
- ^ Gershovich 2005, p. 102.
- ^ a b Strachan 2003, p. 767.
- ^ McDougall 2003, p. 54.
References
- Bimberg, Edward L. (1999), The Moroccan goums: tribal warriors in a modern war, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, ISBN 978-0-313-30913-7
- Burke, Edmund (1975), "Moroccan Resistance, Pan-Islam and German War Strategy, 1914–1918", Francia, 3: 434–464, archived from the original on 2019-01-29, retrieved 2010-12-27
- Gershovich, Moshe (2005), French military rule in Morocco: colonialism and its consequences, Abingdon: Frank Cass, ISBN 978-0-7146-4949-8
- Hart, David M. (1 October 2000), "French Military Rule in Morocco: Colonialism and its Consequences. (Review)", Middle Eastern Studies
- Hoisington, William A (1995), Lyautey and the French conquest of Morocco, New York: Macmillan:St Martin's press, ISBN 978-0-312-12529-5
- Jaques, Tony (2007), Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A-E, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, ISBN 978-0-313-33537-2
- Lázaro, Fabio T. López (1988), "From the A'Yan to Amir: The Abd Al-Karim of the Moroccan Rif, 1900 to 1921", Summit | SFU's Institutional Repository (PDF), Master of Arts Thesis, Simon Fraser University, archived from the original (PDF) on July 21, 2011
- McDougall, James (2003), Nation, society and culture in North Africa, London: Frank Cass, ISBN 978-0-7146-5409-6
- Military Intelligence Division, General Staff (July–August 1925), "Foreign Military Notes" (PDF), The Field Artillery Journal: 395–404, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-02-25, retrieved 2012-05-08
- Strachan, Hew (2003), The First World War: To arms, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-820877-8
- Windrow, Martin; Chappell, Mike (1999), French Foreign Legion 1914–1945, Oxford: Osprey, ISBN 978-1-85532-761-0
- Windrow, Martin (2010), Our Friends Beneath the Sands, London: Phoenix, ISBN 978-0-7538-2856-4