Battle of Annual The Battle of Annual was fought on July 22 , 1921 , at Annual in Spanish Morocco , between the Spanish Army of Africa and Berber combatants of the Rif region during the Rif War . The Spanish suffered a major military defeat , almost always referred to by the Spanish as the Disaster of Annual , which led to major political crises and a redefinition of Spanish colonial policy toward the Rif . Description . In early 1921 the Spanish army commenced an offensive into northeastern Morocco from the coastal regions they already held . The advance took place without extended lines of communication being adequately established or the complete subjugation of the areas occupied . On July 22 , 1921 , after five days of siege , Spanish forces under the command of general Manuel Fernández Silvestre garrisoning the encampment of Annual were attacked and destroyed by Riffi irregular forces commanded by Muhammad Ibn ' Abd al - Karim al - Khattabi ( usually known as " Abd el Krim " ) , a former functionary of the Spanish administration in the Office of Indigenous Affairs in Melilla and one of the leaders of the tribe of the Aith Ouriaghel . The overextended Spanish military structure in the Western Spanish Protectorate in Morocco crumbled . After the battle , the Rif Berbers began to advance eastward , where they overran more than 130 Spanish military posts . The Spanish garrisons were destroyed without mounting a coordinated response to the attacks . At the end of August 1921 , Spain had lost all the territories it had gained in the area since 1909 . General Silvestre disappeared and his remains were never found . One version claims that Spanish Sergeant Francisco Basallo Berrcerra of the Kandussi garrison , who survived the Dar Quebdani massacre , identified the remains of Silvestre by its scars . A Moorish courier from Kaddur Namar claimed that , eight days after the battle , he saw the corpse of the general lying face down on the battlefield . Spanish retreats . At Afrau , on the coast , Spanish warships were able to evacuate the garrison . At Zoco el Telata de Metalsa in the south , Spanish troops and civilians were able to retreat to the French Zone . Spanish survivors of the battle retreated some 80 km to the encampment of Monte Arruit , where a stand was attempted under the command of General Felipe Navarro y Ceballos - Escalera . As this position was surrounded and cut off from supplies , General Dámaso Berenguer Fusté , Spanish High Commissioner in the protectorate , authorized surrender on August 9 . The Rifeños did not respect the conditions of surrender and killed many refugees within the fort . General Navarro was taken prisoner , along with 534 military and 53 civilians . Melilla was only some 40 km away , but was in no position to help : the city was almost defenceless and lacked properly trained troops . The Spanish quickly reinforced Melilla with 14 , 000 men from the Spanish Legion . Abdelkrim did not have enough men to lay siege to the city , and he decided not to attack ; citizens of western European nations were living in Melilla , and he did not wish to risk international disapproval . He later stated that this was his biggest mistake . Spain quickly assembled elite units of the Army of Africa which had been operating south of Tetuan in the Western Zone . These mainly comprised Spanish Legion and Moroccan Regulares newly recruited in 1920 . Transferred to Melilla by sea , these reinforcements enabled the city to be held and Monte Arruit to be retaken by the end of November . The Spanish lost more than 20 , 000 soldiers at Annual . German historian Werner Brockdorff states that only 1 , 200 of the 20 , 000 Spanish escaped alive . Rif casualties were 800 . Materiel lost by the Spanish , in the summer of 1921 and especially in the Battle of Annual , included 11 , 000 rifles , 3 , 000 carbine s , 1 , 000 musket s , 60 machine gun s , 2 , 000 horses , 1 , 500 mules , 100 cannon , and a large quantity of ammunition . Abd el Krim remarked later : " In just one night , Spain supplied us with all the equipment which we needed to carry on a big war . " Other sources give the amount of booty seized by Rif warriors as 20 , 000 rifles ( German made Mauser s ) , 400 machine guns ( Hotchkisses ) , and 120 – 150 artillery pieces ( Schneiders ) . Aftermath . The political crisis brought about by this disaster led Indalecio Prieto to say in the Congress of Deputies : " We are at the most acute period of Spanish decadence . The campaign in Africa is a total failure , absolute , without extenuation , of the Spanish Army . " The Minister of War ordered the creation of an investigative commission , directed by General Juan Picasso González , which developed the report known as the " Expediente Picasso " . The report detailed numerous military mistakes , but owing to the obstructive action of various ministers and judges , did not go so far as to lay political responsibility for the defeat . Popular opinion widely placed the blame for the disaster upon King Alfonso XIII , who according to several sources had encouraged Silvestre ' s irresponsible penetration to positions far from Melilla without having adequate defenses in his rear . Alfonso ' s apparent indifference – vacationing in southern France , he reportedly said " Chicken meat is cheap " when informed of the disaster – led to a popular backlash against the monarchy . The crisis was one of the many that , over the course of the next decade , undermined the Spanish monarchy and led to the rise of the Second Spanish Republic . In Literature . The battle is described in several novels : " Imán " , by Ramón José Sender Garcés , " La Ruta " by Arturo Barea , and in the Dutch novel " The Blood in our Veins " , by Miquel Bulnes .