As the first, and possibly at the same time the last act of the 
Spanish war in Morocco has now been brought to a close, and as 
all the detailed official reports have arrived,* we may once more 
return to the subject. 

On the first of January the Spanish army left the lines of Ceuta, 
in order to advance upon Tetuan, which is only 21 miles distant. 
Though never at any time seriously attacked, or stopped by the 
enemy, it took Marshal O’Donnell not less than a month to bring 
his troops to within sight of that town. The absence of roads, and 
the necessary caution are not sufficient motives for this unparal- 
leled slowness of march; and it is plain that the command of the 
sea possessed by the Spaniards, was not utilized to the full extent. 
Nor is it an excuse that a road had to be made for heavy guns and 
provisions. Both should have been principally carried by the ships, 
while the army, provided with a week’s provision, and no other 
guns than the mountain artillery (carried on the backs of mules), 
could have reached the hights above Tetuan in five days at the 
utmost, and waited with the Rios division, which then, as well as 
three weeks afterward, could not be prevented from landing at the 
mouth of the Wahad el Jelu. The battle of the 4th of February 
might have been fought, and probably under still more favorable 
aspects for the Spaniards, on the 6th or 7th of January; thus 
thousands of men lost through sickness would have been spared, 
and by the 8th of January Tetuan might have been taken. 

This seems a bold assertion. Surely, O’Donnell was as eager to 
get to Tetuan as any of his soldiers; he has shown bravery, 
circumspection, coolness, and other soldierly qualities. If it took 
him a month to arrive before it, how could he have done the same 
thing in a week? O’Donnell had two ways before him to bring up 
his troops. First, he might rely chiefly on the communication by 
land, and use the ships merely as auxiliaries. This is what he did. 
He organized a regular land transport for his provisions and 
ammunition, and took with the army a numerous field-artillery of 
12-pounders. His army was to be entirely independent of the 
ships, in case of need; the ships were to serve merely as a second 
line of communication with Ceuta, useful, but anything but 
indispensable. This plan, of course, entailed the organization of an 
immense train of carriages, and this train necessitated the 
construction of a road. Thus a week was lost until the road from 
the lines to the beach had been constructed; and almost at every 
step, the whole column, army, train and all, was halted, until 
another piece of road had been made for the next day’s advance. 
Thus, the duration of the march was measured by the miles of 
road which the Spanish engineers could construct from day to 
day; and this appears to have been done at the rate of about half a 
mile per day. Thus the very means selected to transport the 
provisions necessitated an immense increase of the train, for the 
longer the army remained on the road, the more, of course, it 
must consume. Still, when, about the 18th January, a gale drove 
the steamers from the coast, the army was starving, and that 
within sight of their depot at Ceuta; another stormy day, and 
one-third of the army would have had to march back to fetch 
provision for the other two. Thus it was that Marshal O’Donnell 
managed to promenade 18,000 Spaniards along the coast of Africa 
for a whole month at the rate of two-thirds of a mile a day. This 
system of provisioning the army once adopted, no power in 
the world could have very materially shortened the length of 
this unparalleled march; but was it not a mistake to adopt it 
at all? 

If Tetuan had been an inland town, situated twenty-one miles 
from the coast instead of four miles, no doubt there would have 
been no other choice. The French in those expeditions to the 
interior of Algeria found the same difficulties and overcame them 
in the same way, though with greater energy and quickness. The 
English in India and Afghanistan were saved this trouble by the 
comparative facility of finding beasts of burden and provender for 
them in those countries; their artillery was light, and required no 

good roads, as the campaigns were carried on in the dry season 
only, when armies can march straight across the country. But it 
was left to the Spaniards and to Marshal O’Donnell to march an 
army along the sea-shore for a whole month, and to accomplish in 
this time the immense distance of twenty-one miles. 

It is evident from this that both appliances and ideas in the 
Spanish army are of a very old-fashioned character. With a fleet of 
steamers and sailing transports always within sight, this march is 
perfectly ridiculous, and the men disabled during it by cholera 
and dysentery, were sacrificed to prejudice and incapacity. The 
road built by the engineers was no real communication with Ceuta, 
for it belonged to the Spaniards nowhere except where they 
happened to encamp. To the rear, the Moors might any day 
render it impracticable. To carry a message, or escort a convoy 
back to Ceuta, a division of 5,000 men at least was required. 
During the whole of the march, the communication with that place 
was carried on by the steamers alone. And with all that, the 
provisions accompanying the army were so insufficient that before 
twenty days had passed the army was on the point of starvation, 
and saved only by the stores from the fleet. Why, then, build the 
road at all? For the artillery? The Spaniards must have known for 
certain that the Moors had no field-artillery, and that their own 
rifled mountain guns were superior to anything the enemy could 
bring against them. Why, then, trail all this artillery along with 
them, if the whole of it could be carried by sea from Ceuta to San 
Martin (at the mouth of the Wahad el Jelu or Tetuan river) in a 
couple of hours? For any extremity, a single battery of field-guns 
might have accompanied the army, and the Spanish artillery must 
be very clumsy, if they could not march it over any ground in the 
world at the rate of five miles a day. 

The Spaniards had shipping to carry at least one division at a 
time, as the landing of the Rios division at San Martin proved. 
Had the attack been made by English or French troops, there is 
no doubt that this division would have been landed at once at San 
Maftin, after a few demonstrations from Ceuta to attract the 
Moors to that place. Such a division of 5,000 men, entrenched by 
slight field-works, such as might be thrown up in a single night, 
could have fearlessly awaited the attack of any number of Moors. 
But a division could have been landed every day, if the weather 
was favorable, and thus the army could have been concentrated 
within sight of Tetuan in six or eight days. We may, however, 
doubt whether O’Donnell would have liked to expose one of his 
divisions to an isolated attack for possibly three or four days—his 

troops were young, and not accustomed to war. He cannot be 
blamed for not having adopted this course. 

But this he might undoubtedly have done. With every man 
carrying a week’s provisions, with all his mountain guns— perhaps 
a battery of field guns, and as many stores as he could carry on 
the backs of his mules and horses, he might have marched off 
from Ceuta, and approached Tetuan as quickly as possible. Take 
all difficulties into consideration, eight miles a day is certainly little 
enough. But say five; this would give four days marching. Say two 
days for engagements, although they must be poor victories that 
do not imply a gain of five miles of ground. This would give six 
days in all, and would include all delays caused by the weather, for 
an army without a train can certainly do four or five miles a day 
in any weather almost. Thus the army would arrive in the plain of 
Tetuan before the provisions it carried were consumed; in case of 
need, the steamers were there to land fresh supplies during the 
march, as they actually did. Morocco is no worse country for 
ground or weather than Algeria, and the French have done far 
more there in the midst of Winter, and far away in the hills, too, 
without any steamers to support and supply them. Once arrived 
on the heights of the Monte Negro, and master of the pass to 
Tetuan, the communication with the fleet in the roads of San 
Martin was safe, and the sea formed the base of operations. Thus, 
with a little boldness, the period during which the army had no 
base of operations but itself, would have been shortened from a 
month to a week, and the bolder plan was therefore the safer of 
the two; for the more formidable the Moors were, the more the 
slow march of O’Donnell became dangerous. And if the army had 
been defeated on the road to Tetuan, its retreat was far easier 
than if it had been encumbered with baggage and field-artillery. 

O’Donnell’s progress from the Monte Negro, which he passed 
almost without opposition, was quite in keeping with his former 
slowness. There was again a throwing up and a strengthening of 
redoubts, as if the best organized army had been opposed to him. 
A week was thus wasted, although against such opponents, simple 
field-works would have sufficed; he could not expect to be 
attacked by any artillery equal to six of his mountain guns, and for 
the construction of such a camp one or two days ought to have 
been sufficient. At last, on the 4th, he attacked the intrenched 
camp of his opponents. The Spaniards appear to have behaved 
very well during this action; of the merits of the _ tactical 
arrangements we are unable to judge, the few correspondents in 
the Spanish camp dropping all the dry military details in favor of 

good painting and exaggerated enthusiasm. As the correspondent 
of the London Times says, what is the use of my describing to you 
a piece of ground which you ought to see, in order to judge of its 
nature! The Moors were completely routed, and the following day 
Tetuan surrendered. 

This closes the first act of the campaign, and if the Emperor of 
Morocco* is not too obstinate, it will very likely close the whole 
war. Still, the difficulties incurred hitherto by the Spaniards— 
difficulties increased by the system on which they have conducted. 
the war—show that if Morocco holds out, Spain will find it a very 
severe piece of work. It is not the actual resistance of the Moorish 
irregulars—that never will defeat disciplined troops so long as 
they hold together and can be fed; it is the uncultivated nature of 
the country, the impossibility of conquering anything but the 
towns, and to draw supplies even from them; it is the necessity of 
dispersing the army in a great many small posts, which, after all, 
cannot suffice to keep open a regular communication between the 
conquered towns, and which cannot be victualed, unless the 
greater part of the force be sent to escort the convoys of stores 
over a roadless country, and across constantly reappearing clouds 
of Moorish skirmishers. It is well known what it was for the 
French, during the first five or six years of their African conquest, 
to revictual even Blidah and Médéa, not to speak of stations 
further from the coast. With the rapid wear and tear of European 
armies in that climate, six or twelve months of such a war will be 
no joke for a country like Spain. 

The first object of attack, if the war be continued, will naturally 
be Tangier. The road from Tetuan to Tangier lies across a 
mountain pass, and then down the valley of a river. It is all inland 
work—no steamers near to furnish stores, and no roads. The 
distance is about 26 miles. How long will it take Marshal 
O’Donnell to do this distance, and how many men will he have to 
leave in Tetuan? He is reported to have said that it will take 
20,000 men to hold it; but this is evidently much exaggerated. 
With 10,000 men in the town, and a local brigade in an 
intrenched camp at San Martin, the place should be safe enough; 
such a force might always take the field in sufficient strength to 
disperse any Moorish attack. Tangier might be taken by bombard- 
ment from the sea, and the garrison brought thither by sea also. It 
would be the same with Larache, Salé, Mogador. But if the 
Spaniards intended to act in this way, why the long march to 

Tetuan? This much is certain: The Spaniards have much to learn 
yet in warfare before they can compel Morocco to peace, if 
Morocco holds out for a year. 

Tribune, No. 5896, March 17, 1860 

Frederick Engels