Basically the challenge is to have the Republic of the Rif survive the war and win its independence.
AHC: Rif Victory in 1926?
- Thread starter Enigmajones
- Start date
I suspect that this is very, very difficult, not so much because of the Spanish, but because the French have a vested interest in crushing the Rif to prevent their own subjects from having ideas.
With that said, a while back I posited a far worse disaster for the Spanish in 1921, at Annual. The thread's here. If the Rifans take Melilla, the Spanish are paralysed for a time by a series of coups, and then when they launch a counter offensive it peters out into a grinding, bloody stalemate in the hinterland, then it's just about possible that you get a de facto independent Rif Republic that lasts long enough for a war weary and bankrupt Spanish Government to recognise some time in the late 1920s. It's a stretch though.
With that said, a while back I posited a far worse disaster for the Spanish in 1921, at Annual. The thread's here. If the Rifans take Melilla, the Spanish are paralysed for a time by a series of coups, and then when they launch a counter offensive it peters out into a grinding, bloody stalemate in the hinterland, then it's just about possible that you get a de facto independent Rif Republic that lasts long enough for a war weary and bankrupt Spanish Government to recognise some time in the late 1920s. It's a stretch though.
Ooh. That sounds interesting. Wonder if I could tie that into a TL where Sidonio Pais lives and the New Republic remains.
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Yeah, but ultimately an independent, Arab state in the region is not in France's interests to permit to exist.
It sets a nasty precedent.
Is it possible that the French allow the Rif to go independent, in an effort to eventually swallow up the Rif and annex it to French Morocco?
So they have the goal of eventually swallowing up a a province full of rebellious Muslims who succeeded in gaining their independence from a European country even if it was only for a short time?
Yeah, I'm sure the french won't have any problems there.
Well to say that the French military was on par with 1920's Spanish military is a bit of an insult.
There is no point nor need to do this. If Spain gives up, France calls the 1912 partition treaty obsolete and marches in to assume sole protectorate over Morocco, pure and simple. Plus, having just fought WW1 together Britain would say nothing and Britain was the sole reason that Spain was goven northern Morocco in the first place.
Recognizing a native authority in the Rif undermines French authority over the rest of Morocco, undermines the rule of the Sultan and his vassal status to France and opens the north to harbor rebels that attack the French protectorate. So it's not going to happen.
Alright, alright. So unless Rif manages to win the war, they won't be able to exercise independence.
The US military completely outclassed the Vietcong and the North Vietnam Army in every measurable way. When it comes to occupying a hostile people the most important is always will. A people who successfully rebelled and were independent for a time are not going to tamely yield because the new infidel masters have better rifles and machine guns.
They would be a dangerous example to Morocco and Algeria and I can't see them wanting to let their subjects see any successful revolt against a European nation.
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
Not really.
The problem with any experiment in independence is that no matter how short it is it will likely inspire future generations to strive for independence once more.
The Japanese propped up puppet regimes across Southeast Asia and even though they only lasted for the duration of the Second World War it fueled a generation of colonial independence movements once the Japanese Empire was no more.
Quite a few people who would later become highly important in their own national independence movements, like Sukarno in Indonesia and Park Chung-hee in Korea, owed their abilities/positions in some way or another to the Japanese.
When the British surrendered to the Japanese at Singapore that was a sign to the whole world that the British could be beaten by an Asian people. Even though Japan eventually lost the British could never erase that defeat and it gave the Indians and many others confidence they could triumph.
The British had already given the French Syria, the vast majority of German Kamerun, and half of Togo despite them having seized veeeeery little of the land, as well as forking over Kenyan and Egyptian territory to the Italians. I do not see why they allow the French to annex the land of the country which tried to make an anti Anglo-American detente with the Germans (not sure if that was public back then though), so it would make a hell of a lot more sense to have the area be an American or Portueguese mandate. Not as if the French would have been able to take the Rift anyways.
IF the Rif win (does NOT matter if France later takes all of Marocco), then the nationalists would not have the African troops that were so vital in the first moths of the spanish civil war. Maybe this would lead to an early Republican victory...