Friedrich Engels 
The Moorish War 
End of February to March 1, 1860 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 5896, 17. März 1860 

The Moorish War. 

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 unparalleled 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, cool- 
ness, 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 ammuni- 
tion, 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 unparal- 
leled 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 Martin, 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 Montes 
Negros, 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 opera- 
tions. 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 form the Montes Negros, 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 op- 
ponents. 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 dif- 
ficulties 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 re- 
sistance 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 Medeah, 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 entrenched 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 bombardment 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.