Seward daily gateway., 1925-12-03
FRANCE MUST WIN FROM RIFFS OR
 QUIT MOROCCO
PAST YEARS CAMPAIGN HAS NOT SERIOUSLY ANNOYED
 REBEL LEADER

OUEZZAN, Dec. 3. Now that the Moroccan campaign is ended and that our connection with the French army operations is drawing toward it's end, it may be interesting to take a retrospective view of the general results.
 Last April Abd- d-El-Krim, in spite of the friendly relations he had al- ways had with the French, attacked suddenly French outposts guarding the plains about Fez and the coast cities against incursions of mountain tribes. At that time he had a we'll trained, we'll supplied veteran army of S0000 regulars, elated by their victory over the Spaniards.
 As they advanced into the French zone, tribes as yet unsubdued or those just lately subdued, rallied to his standards, attracted by the pros- poets of rich booty. It is useless to attempt to describe the ferocity of that first attack, or the desperate situation of the French forces, who were outnumbered and almost over- whelmed.
 Paul Scott Mowrer, in a brilliant series of dispatches, gave an unfor- gettable picture of the almost hope less situation of the gallant little French army and it's super-human efforts to hold out
 Arrival of endorsements enabled Marshal Lyautey to stem the flood and finally to reestablish a defensive line behind which a counter-offen- sive could be organized.
 Now General Petain has carried out that offensive and the French line has been reestablished approxi- mately as it was before Abd-El- Krim's raid.
 But what is the situation now? The Riffian Pancho Villa, who has been driven back over the Moroccan Rio Grande, unfortunately makes the answer only too clear. He has not been touched as yet. Up to the pres ent, the French have been fighting only against warriors drawn from i tribes which revolted under the in- fluence of the bandit leader. The Riffian army itself furnished only i the necessary number of trained sol- diers to stiffen the mass of irregu- lars. But the Berber troops have not yet encountered the enemy.
 Abd- -El-Krim's eighty thousand regulars, entrenched in their noun tain fastnesses, await a favorable opportunity again to raid the fertile plains. This promises new fights in the near future.
 Spain, meanwhile, if one can be- lieve the Madrid press, intends to persist in her announced policy of leaving Abd-El-Krim a free field to fasten his hold on the mountain tribes. From time immemorial the chief occupation of these hillsmen has been raiding and plundering the 1owlands, and certainly only force can stop them from continuing this lucrative and agreeable trade.
 One is compelled to conclude that sooner or later the French will send a punitive expedition across the mountains. In word the presence of -El-Krim and the French in Morocco at the same time is prac- tically impossible. The French must conquer him or get out.
 It is now evident that the cam paign of 1925 has done little toward a final clearing up of the Riffian situation.
 It has established a basis for a future solution, but it has not solved the problem. If the French intend to conquer northern Morocco there arises immediately the ques- tion of the control of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean.