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| Africa North |
| The defense of Ceuta and Melilla (from 2019) |
| 2026-08-06 |
| From 2019 by Roberto Gutiérrez [REVISTAEJERCITOS] Are Ceuta and Melilla in danger? This is an increasingly common question in the press. On the one hand, a war between Spain and Morocco seems unthinkable at present, given that both states are important trading partners and share common allies such as France and the United States. On the other hand, any change in Moroccan domestic politics or on the international stage could precipitate a confrontation that goes beyond the diplomatic arena, as there are significant points of contention on key issues such as territorial waters and sovereignty over the Spanish cities in North Africa. Is Spain still in a position to defend Ceuta and Melilla and the rest of its North African territories, or has Morocco's rearmament program definitively tipped the scales in Rabat's favor? "My children, we are going to abandon this little corral that we have defended like heroes due to the lack of provisions and ammunition; weep for your brothers whom you leave without burial, now we are going to continue defending ourselves with the little ammunition that we have left and when this runs out, use the bayonet; I, my children, will continue to command you as I have done until now." With these words, Infantry Commander Julio BenÃtez addressed the besieged troops of Igueriben for the last time. Minutes later, only a dozen of the 350 men defending the position would emerge alive. This marked the beginning of what has gone down in history as the "Disaster of Annual," where more than ten thousand men, including their commander, General Silvestre, would lose their lives in July 1921 at the position of the same name, near Melilla. This event would profoundly mark the Spanish Army, although it is only the bloodiest chapter of the many that occurred during the Spanish protectorate of Morocco, which extended for a century, from the conflict of 1859 or the first war of Africa, until the end of the protectorate in 1961 (Sidi Ifni would be handed over peacefully in 1969). Those conflicts shaped the Army, giving rise to some of its elite units (and its most decorated, due to their performance in these lands), such as the Legion and the Regulares. It was also the scene of our first aerial bombardments and the use of tanks (in 1913 and 1922 respectively). But the wars in Morocco will not be the only mark that the territory leaves on our Army, a mark that still lingers in the minds of some generals who were young officers in 1975, when the ignominious withdrawal from the Spanish Sahara was undertaken, claimed by Morocco and Mauritania and still today, 45 years later, immersed in a jurisdictional limbo. Given what happened in those days, we can say that it is a true miracle that the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla remain Spanish, since a part of society and political parties, with no knowledge beyond an obtuse geographical logic (they may be in Africa, but they have been part of our country for 500 years and have been Christian enclaves since Roman times) have given wings to the absurd claim of Morocco, a nation that did not obtain its independence until 1956, to request their annexation; as if the invasion, not authorized by the United Nations, of the Spanish Sahara had not been plunder enough. This situation led the emboldened government of Mohammed VI to test the resolve of the Spanish government by seizing Perejil Island in 2002, a small rock located off the African coast west of Ceuta. The response from José MarÃa Aznar's administration was forceful, excessive, and even ridiculous, according to the aforementioned sources, but necessary to send the message the young and ambitious Moroccan monarch sought. Although there was no military confrontation as such, it brought back into the spotlight the century-old and forgotten conflict in Morocco, now focused on the defense possibilities of the aforementioned cities against a possible aggression. This account must begin by making it clear that today, with Spain being a major investor in Morocco and part of solid political and military alliances, and with the neighboring country far from Islamist influence, clearly pro-Western and a preferred partner of France and the United States, such a conflict is very unlikely. But it is equally true that this same situation existed in 2002, when the Perejil Island crisis set off alarm bells, compounded by the persistent suspicion regarding the stance that allies who excluded these territories from the NATO accession treaty would take. In fact, on that occasion, the diplomatic response from some of them was rather lukewarm, if not openly hostile. According to former President Aznar in his memoirs, Jacques Chirac even apologized to him for putting France's economic interests before the policy of European solidarity in foreign affairs (even going so far as to saturate the signal of the main satellite that Spain had for its communications, the Helios, which was French) that France initiated precisely when the then Prime Minister Francois Mitterrand gave his unconditional support to the United Kingdom in the Falklands crisis (despite having strong commercial ties with Argentina). At that time of great European weakness, it was the American administration of George W. Bush, with its Secretary of State Colin Powell at the helm, that intervened on behalf of Spain and stability in the Mediterranean. It's understandable that Aznar later joined the fight against terrorism and the intervention in Iraq, with the famous Azores photo. It goes without saying that the current occupants of the White House and the Moncloa Palace are far removed from those of that time. This scenario, in which Spain has to manage on its own in the defense of Ceuta and Melilla, at least in the purely military aspect, imposes serious limitations on the operational analysis of a hypothetical confrontation. From Morocco's perspective, this forces them to keep the conflict a purely regional matter, or more specifically, confined to the disputed territory for diplomatic reasons. It is obvious that an attack on the Spanish mainland or the Canary Islands, as well as attacks on Spanish vessels in its territorial waters, would allow Spain to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, resulting in the military, political, and economic collapse of the Alawite kingdom. More at the link (in Spanish) |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2026-08-06 21:54 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2026-08-06 12:32 |