The Ifni War, sometimes called the Forgotten War in Spain (la Guerra Olvidada), 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.
The city of Sidi Ifni had been ceded to the Spanish Empire in 1860 at the end of the Hispano-Moroccan War. After Morocco achieved independence in 1956, it sought to claim Spain's remaining possessions in West Africa. Violent demonstrations against Spanish rule broke out in Ifni in April 1957, and in October Moroccan militias began converging near the territory. Moroccan forces attacked in November, forcing the Spanish to abandon most of the territory and retreat to a defensive perimeter around Ifni. Supplied by the Spanish Navy from the sea, the Spanish garrison was able to resist the siege, which lasted into June 1958. In Spanish Sahara, Moroccan units, now reorganised as the Moroccan Army of Liberation, engaged in heavy fighting with Spanish forces at El Aaiún and Edchera. By February 1958, a joint Spanish and French offensive had driven the Moroccans out of Spanish Sahara.
Hostilities ceased in April 1958 (although small skirmishes still occurred) with the Treaty of Angra de Cintra, signed by the Spanish and Moroccan governments, by which Cape Juby and most of the Ifni territory were transferred to Morocco. The city of Sidi Ifni remained in Spanish possession until 1969, when, under international pressure, it was relinquished to Morocco.
Background
Spanish and French protectorates in Morocco and Spanish Sahara, 1912.
When Morocco regained independence from France and Spain in 1956, the country expressed keen interest in all of Spain’s remaining colonial possessions in Morocco, claiming that they were historically and geographically all part of Moroccan territory. Sultan Mohammed V encouraged efforts to re-capture the land and personally funded anti-Spanish conspirators, Moroccan insurgents and local Berber rebels to claim Ifni back for Morocco.[9]
Outbreak
Violent demonstrations against Spanish rule erupted in Ifni on 10 April 1957, followed by civil strife and widespread killings of those loyal to Spain. In response, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco dispatched two battalions of the Spanish Legion, Spain's elite fighting force, to El Aaiún in Saguia el-Hamra in June.
Spanish military mobilisation resulted in the Royal Moroccan Army converging near Ifni. On October 23, 1957, two villages on the outskirts of Sidi Ifni, Goulimine and Bouizakarne, were occupied by 1,500 Moroccan soldiers (Moujahidine).
The encirclement of Ifni was the beginning of the Ifni War. Two more Legion battalions reached Spanish Sahara before the opening of hostilities.
Storming of Ifni
On 21 November, Spanish intelligence in Ifni reported that attacks were imminent by Moroccans and local tribes operating out of Tafraout. Two days later, Spanish lines of communication were cut, and a force of 2,000 Moroccans stormed Spanish garrisons and armories in and around Ifni.
Although the Moroccan drive into Sidi Ifni was repulsed, two nearby Spanish outposts were abandoned in the face of Moroccan attacks and many others remained under heavy siege.
Tiluin
At Tiliuín[es], 60 Tiradores de Ifni (locally recruited indigenous infantry with Spanish officers and specialist personnel) struggled to hold off a force of several hundred Moroccans. On November 25, a relief attempt was authorised. Five CASA 2.111 bombers (Spanish-built variants of the Heinkel He 111) bombed enemy positions, while an equal number of CASA 352 transports (Spanish-built versions of the Junkers Ju 52/3m) dropped a force of 75 paratroopers into the outpost. The following months saw Spanish troops retreat from the territory to a defensive perimeter around Sidi Ifni.[10]
On 3 December, soldiers of the Spanish Legion's 6th battalion (VI Bandera) arrived, breaking the siege and retaking the airfield. All military and civilian personnel were then evacuated overland to Sidi Ifni.
Telata
The relief of Telata was less successful. Leaving Sidi Ifni on 24 November aboard several old trucks, a platoon of the Spanish Legion paratroop battalion under Captain Ortiz de Zárate made slow progress through difficult terrain. This problem was compounded by frequent Moroccan ambushes, which by the next day had left several men wounded and forced the Spaniards off the road. On 26 November, food ran out. The Spanish, low on ammunition, resumed their advance, only to dig in again in the face of repeated enemy attacks.
Rations were dropped by air, but Spanish casualties continued to mount. One of the dead was Captain Ortiz de Zárate. On 2 December, a column of infantry, among them the erstwhile defenders of Telata, broke through the Moroccan lines and managed to escape encirclement. The survivors of the paratroop detachment reached Sidi Ifni once more on 5 December. The company had suffered two dead and fourteen wounded.
Siege of Sidi Ifni
Initial Moroccan and local tribes attacks had been generally successful. In the space of a fortnight, the Moroccans and their tribal allies had asserted control over most of Ifni, isolating inland Spanish units from the capital. Simultaneous attacks had been launched throughout Spanish Sahara, overrunning garrisons and ambushing convoys and patrols.
Consequently, Moroccan units, resupplied and greatly reinforced, tried to surround and besiege Sidi Ifni, hoping to incite a popular uprising. However, the Moroccans underestimated the strength of the Spanish defences. Supplied from the sea by the Spanish Navy and protected by kilometres of trenches and forward outposts, Sidi Ifni, boasting 7,500 defenders by 9 December, proved impregnable. The siege, lasting into June 1958, was uneventful and relatively bloodless, as Spain and Morocco both concentrated resources on Saharan theatres.
Battle of Edchera
In January 1958, Morocco redoubled its commitment to the Spanish campaign, reorganising all army units in Spanish territory as the "Saharan Liberation Army".
On 12 January, a division of the Saharan Liberation Army attacked the Spanish garrison at El Aaiún. Beaten back and forced into retreat by the Spaniards, the army turned its efforts to the southeast. Another opportunity presented itself the next day at Edchera, where two companies of the 13th Legionnaire battalion were conducting a reconnaissance mission. Slipping unseen into the large dunes near the Spanish positions, the Moroccans opened fire.
Ambushed, the Legionnaires struggled to maintain cohesion, driving off attacks with mortar and small arms fire. The 1st platoon stubbornly denied ground to the Moroccans until heavy losses forced it to withdraw. Bloody attacks continued until nightfall, and were fiercely resisted by the Spanish, who inflicted heavy casualties. By nightfall, the Moroccans were too scattered and depleted of men to continue their assault, and retreated into the darkness.
Clearance of Spanish Sahara
Map of Spanish Sahara, Ifni, and the Canary Islands, 1960.
In February 1958, a Franco-Spanish combined force launched an offensive that broke up the Moroccan Liberation Army. Between them, France and Spain deployed a joint air fleet of 150 planes. The Spanish were 9,000 strong and the French 5,000.
First to fall were the Moroccan mountain strongholds at Tan-Tan. Bombed from above and rocketed from below, the Liberation Army suffered 150 dead and abandoned its positions.
On February 10, the 4th, 9th, and 13th Spanish Legion battalions, organised into a motorised group, drove the Moroccans from Edchera and advanced to Tafurdat and Smara.
The Spanish army at El Aaiún, in conjunction with French forces from Fort Gouraud, struck the Moroccans on February 21, destroying Saharan Liberation Army concentrations between Bir Nazaran and Ausert.
Morocco obtained the region of Tarfaya (Cape Juby), between the river Draa and the parallel 27°40′, and Ifni[11] (although legally Morocco only gained full control over the territory in 1969), excluding the colony of Spanish Sahara.[12]
Santamaría, Ramiro. Ifni-Sahara, la guerra ignorada ("Ifni-Sahara, the Ignored War") Dyrsa, Madrid, 1984. The history of the Ifni war told by a specialised journalist in the Western Sahara.
Casas de la Vega, Rafael. La última guerra de Africa ("The last war of Africa") Servicio de Publicaciones del Estado Mayor del Ejército, Madrid, 1985. Military analysis of the war by a Spanish general.
Mariñas Romero, Gerardo. "La Legión española en la guerra de Ifni-Sahara" ("The Spanish Legion in the Ifni-Sahara War"). Defensa, nº 117 (1988). Article about the intervention of the Spanish Legion in the Ifni war.
Belles Gasulla, José. Cabo Jubi-58. Memorias de un teniente de infantería en la campaña Ifni-Sahara ("Cape Jubi-58: Memoirs of an infantry lieutenant in the Ifni-Sahara campaign") Servicio de Publicaciones del Estado Mayor del Ejército, Madrid, 1990. Testimony of a Spanish officer.
Diego Aguirre, José Ramón. "Ifni, la última guerra colonial española" ("Ifni, the last Spanish colonial war"). Historia 16, nº 167 (1990). Analysis of the Ifni war with unpublished documents.
Diego Aguirre, José Ramón. La última guerra colonial de España: Ifni-Sahara, 1957–1958 ("The last colonial war of Spain: Ifni-Sahara, 1957–1958"). Algazara, Málaga, 1993. ISBN978-8487999178 History of the Ifni war.
Simón Contreras, Miguel. "Ifni y Sahara, hoy" ("Ifni and Sahara, today"). Ejército, nº 633 (1992). An officer of the Spanish Army revisits the battleground .
Tamburini, Francesco. "Ifni-Sahara, 1957–1958: una guerra coloniale dimenticata" ("Ifni-Sahara, 1957–1958: a forgotten colonial war"). Eserciti e Storia, no. 42, a. VII, July–August 2007.
Ifni was a Spanish province on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, south of Agadir and across from the Canary Islands. It had a total area of 1,502 km2 (580 sq mi), and a population of 51,517 in 1964. The main industry was fishing. The present-day Moroccan province in the same area is called Sidi Ifni, with its capital in the city of the same name, but encompassing a much larger territory.
Cape Juby is a cape on the coast of southern Morocco, near the border with Western Sahara, directly east of the Canary Islands.
Spanish Sahara, officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958, then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was occupied and ruled by Spain between 1884 and 1976. It had been one of the most recent acquisitions, as well as one of the last remaining holdings, of the Spanish Empire, which had once extended from the Americas to the Spanish East Indies.
The Spanish protectorate in Morocco was established on 27 November 1912 by a treaty between France and Spain that converted the Spanish sphere of influence in Morocco into a formal protectorate.
Sidi Ifni is a city located on the west coast of Morocco, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, with a population of 20,051 people. The economic base of the city is fishing. It is located in Guelmim-Oued Noun region and Sidi Ifni Province. Its inhabitants are the Shilha from the Ait Baamrane ethnic group. In 2000, an important fishing port was completed, which serves as a base for fish exports.
Spanish West Africa was a grouping of Spanish colonies along the Atlantic coast of northwest Africa. It was formed in 1946 by joining the southern zone of the Spanish protectorate in Morocco with the colonies of Ifni, Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro into a single administrative unit. Following the Ifni War (1957–58), Spain ceded the Cape Juby Strip to Morocco by the Treaty of Angra de Cintra, and created separate provinces for Ifni and the Sahara in 1958.
The Army of Africa or Moroccan Army Corps was a field army of the Spanish Army that garrisoned the Spanish protectorate in Morocco from 1912 until Morocco's independence in 1956.
Muhammad Sidi Brahim Sidi Embarek Basir was a Sahrawi nationalist leader, disappeared and presumedly executed by the Spanish Legion in June 1970.
The Army of Liberation was an organization of various loosely united militias fighting for the independence of Morocco from the French-Spanish coalition.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic:
The First Battle of Amgala was fought between 27 and 29 January 1976 around the oasis of Amgala, Western Sahara, about 260 kilometres (160 mi) west of the border with Algeria. Units from the Algerian Army were attacked by units from the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces on the night of 27 January. The Algerians withdrew after fighting for 36 hours. However, the retaliation came fairly soon, between 13 and 15 February 1976 Polisario units defeated Moroccan troops in the second Battle of Amgala.
Sahrawi nationalism is a political ideology that seeks self-determination of the Sahrawi people, the indigenous population of Western Sahara. It has historically been represented by the Polisario Front. It came as a reaction against Spanish colonialist policies imposed from 1958 on, and subsequently in reaction to the Mauritanian and Moroccan invasions of 1975.
The Treaty of Angra de Cintra, signed by Spain and Morocco on 1 April 1958, ended the Spanish protectorate in Morocco and helped end the Ifni War.
The Tiradores de Ifni were volunteer indigenous infantry units of the Spanish Army, largely recruited in the enclave of Ifni The tiradores were originally recruited from the Spanish Morocco, forming part of the Army of Africa and mostly officered by Spaniards. These troops played a role in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).
José Bermejo López was a Spanish military officer and colonial administrator.
The Morocco–Western Sahara border is 444 kilometres (276 mi) in length and runs from Atlantic Ocean in the west, to the tripoint with Algeria in the east. The border has existed purely in a de jure sense since Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara in 1976–1979.
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Francisco Franco 
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