Alhucemas landing

The Alhucemas landing (also known as Al Hoceima landing) was a military landing on 8 September 1925 at Alhucemas of the Spanish Army and Navy and, in lesser numbers, an allied French contingent, that would put an end to the Rif War. It is considered the first aeronaval landing in history.

The operations consisted on disembarking a force of 13,000 Spanish soldiers transported from Ceuta and Melilla by a combined Spanish-French naval fleet. The commander of the operation was the then "Military Director" of Spain, general Miguel Primo de Rivera, and, as the executive head of the landing forces at the beach of Alhucemas bay, general José Sanjurjo, under whose orders where the columns of the chief generals of the brigades of Ceuta and Melilla, Leopoldo Saro Marín and Emilio Fernández Pérez, respectively. Among the participating officers, there was the then colonel Francisco Franco who, for his leadership of the Legion troops was promoted to brigadier general. Years later, US general Dwight Eisenhower thoroughly studied the tactics used by the Spanish in Alhucemas to draw up the plan for the Normandy landings.

Background
After the disaster of Annual, the Spanish army was unable to regain lost territory. Therefore a containment policy was taken, aimed at preventing the expansion of the rebel zone, executed by limited military actions of local nature. In parallel, the Minister of War ordered the creation of an investigative commission, led by General Juan Picasso González, which developed the report known as Expediente Picasso, while political forces, public opinion and even the army was divided between supporters to leave the Protectorate and advocates of restarting the military operations as soon as possible.

In September 1923, the insurrection of general Primo de Rivera occurs, who at first supports the abandonment of the Protectorate but, in 1924 and after new attacks by Abd el Krim that require a new Spanish retreat to the areas of Tetuan, Ceuta and Melilla, becomes a strong supporter of going on the offensive to defeat the Riffian leader and restoring the Spanish authority in the Protectorate.

Planning
On April 1925 a crucial event occurs: Abd el-Krim, confident of his success against the Spanish, attacked the French zone of the Protectorate. This opened the doors for a Spanish-French agreement to make a commont front against the Riffians. To this end, in June 1925 takes place the Madrid Conference, which sets out the necessary actions. Among the agreements reached there's the plan for a Spanish landing on the Alhucemas bay, with the cooperation and support of a combined aero-naval Spanish-French fleet.

Alhucemas, placement of the kabyle of Beni Ouriaghel, to which Abd el Krim belonged, was the focus of the Rif permanent rebellion. All Spanish land operations, included the Disaster of Annual on 1921, aimed at the occupation of Alhucemas, but all of them failed (mainly due to too long lines).

The initial operation proposal considered the landing of 18.000 men, although the landed would eventually be 13.000, to occupy a base of operations in the area of Al Hoceima and deal with an estimated force of 11.000 riffians. This operation was the first amphibious action that involved Spain in the modern era and it, together with the failure of a similar Anglo-French operation at Gallipolli on 1915 during the First World War, posed a concern. As if it was not enough, the terrain presented difficulties in performing the landing, besides being a well-known area for the riffians. This led to Primo de Rivera to investigate the reasons for the disaster at Gallipoli and carefully plan the landing.

The probable knowledge of the planned landing prompted Abd el Krim to fortify the area, placing artillery and mines. These circumstances forced the Spanish command to change the landing site, choosing the Cebadilla Beach and Cala del Quemado, west of the Bay of Al Hoceima. The first major effort to seize the beachead would be exercised in those beaches; once the landing would be successfully achieved, the second effort would be either in some of the adjacent creeks or a deepening and expansion of the initial beachead, depending on the circumstances.