Alfonso XIII, also known as El Africano or the African due to his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, GE, was a Spanish dictator and military officer who ruled as prime minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during the last years of the Bourbon Restoration.
Emilio Mola y Vidal was a Spanish military officer who was one of the three leaders of the Nationalist coup of July 1936 that started the Spanish Civil War.
The Battle of Annual was fought on 22 July 1921 at Annual, in northeastern Morocco, between the Spanish Army and Rifian Berbers during the Rif War. The Spanish suffered a major military defeat, which is almost always referred to by the Spanish as the Disaster of Annual which is widely considered to be the worst defeat suffered by the modern Spanish Army.
The Ifni War, sometimes called the Forgotten War in Spain, was a series of armed incursions into Spanish West Africa by Moroccan insurgents that began in October 1957 and culminated with the abortive siege of Sidi Ifni.
Dámaso Berenguer y Fusté, 1st Count of Xauen was a Spanish general and politician. He served as Prime Minister during the last thirteen months of the reign of Alfonso XIII.
Arsenio Linares y Pombo was a Spanish Army officer and politician. Born in Valencia, he earned the rank of lieutenant in 1868 and participated in operations against rebellions in Cuba, and in the Carlist Wars on mainland Spain putting down rebellions by Basque separatists. He occupied posts in the Philippines, Madrid, and Melilla, and later returned to Cuba. Linares described himself as passionately loyal to King Alfonso XIII. He was an antisemite and a white supremacist, in his memoirs he made numerous disparaging remarks about Jewish people as well as people of African descent. Ideologically Linares said he was opposed to democracy, which he believed was a "flawed idea." On this basis he supported the coup d'état led by Arsenio Martínez Campos to overthrow the First Spanish Republic and restore the monarchy.
The Rif War was an armed conflict fought from 1921 to 1926 between Spain and the Berber (Amazigh) tribes of the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco.
Mohammed ben al-Hajj Amezian, also known as El Mizzian by the Spanish, was a Moroccan sharif who served as the main leader of the Rifian resistance against Spanish rule in northern Morocco prior to the rise of Abd el-Krim in 1921.
The Second Melillan campaign was a conflict in 1909 in northern Morocco around Melilla. The fighting involved local Riffians and the Spanish Army.
José Enrique Varela Iglesias, 1st Marquis of San Fernando de Varela was a Spanish military officer noted for his role as a Nationalist commander in the Spanish Civil War.
Manuel Fernández Silvestre was a Spanish general.
Francisco Gómez-Jordana y Sousa, 1st Count de Jordana, was a Spanish soldier and politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs during the rule of Francisco Franco.
The Spanish Republican Army was the main branch of the Armed Forces of the Second Spanish Republic between 1931 and 1939.
The Alhucemas landing was a landing operation which took place on 8 September 1925 at Alhucemas by the Spanish Army and Navy and, in lesser numbers, an allied French naval and aerial contingent, that would put an end to the Rif War. It is considered the first amphibious landing in history involving the use of tanks and massive seaborne air support. Alhucemas is seen as a precursor of the Allied amphibious landings in World War II, and the first successful combined operation of the 20th century.
The Guardia Mora, officially the Guardia de Su Excelencia el Generalísimo was Francisco Franco's personal ceremonial escort. It was formed in February 1937 from Moroccan personnel drawn from the Guardia Civil in Tétouan and the II Tabor of Grupo de Regulares de Tetuan No.1. Their white and red hooded cloak, based on the djellaba, was worn over the white parade uniform of Regulares officers.
Don Emilio Bonelli y Hernando was a Spanish military officer, author, explorer, colonial administrator and Africanist.
Guillermo Pintos Ledesma was a Spanish Army officer. He took part in the Third Carlist War, the Ten Years' War, the Moro conflict, and the 1895–1898 Cuban War. Promoted to brigadier general in 1905, he was killed in action at a ravine called Barranco del Lobo, during the Second Melillan campaign, leading a column of light infantry that was ambushed by Riffians at the foothills of the Mount Gurugu.
Emilio Blanco Izaga (1892–1949) was a Spanish military comptroller, ethnographer and architect, who developed his career in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco. He published a number of ethnographic and architectural essays on the Rif region.
In 1926 there was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, who had been installed in Spain by another coup d'état in September 1923. The coup attempt, also known as the Sanjuanada because it was planned to take place on the night of June 24, the Night of San Juan, was the first coup d'état attempt against the regime.
