HEAVY MOROCCAN LOSSES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 576, 3 August 1909, Page 5

HEAVY MOROCCAN LOSSES.

MISSING SOLDIERS; ' "MERELY ABSENTED THEMSELVES ' DURING BATTLE." - (Rec. August 2, 10.20 p.m.) • , London, August 9, : The Melilla correspondent of "The' Times" ; reports that there has Ijeen no .fighting there since Wy 27, on which day the Spanish losses in lalled were:. • Officers' ■ : ... , „;• , M •35 . i,: Men .... ■ ... 1 ... ,500 '' Semi-official telegrams received in Madrid statdftthat many of the. missing' Spanish soldiers Hare' returned v to' camp, ' having ;merely absented themselves during tho battle.' A PREVIOUS MELILLA CAMPAIGN. According to recent cablegrams, General Mar,.ma. has, demanded an army of. 1 75,000 men in order to crush the Moors round about Melilla. In 1893 Spain actually did send, an armv of 25,000 men to Melilla, under Marshal Campos— who just, previously, when Captain-General of. Oataloma, had escaped a bomb thrown at him by-Barcelona Anarchists, which wounded several people and caused a great panic. ■The circumstances that called for the sending of; Campos's'army to m Melilla were not unlike those now existing. The Riffs had committed some act ,of aggression upon the Spanish outposts; the Spanish forces were then attackedand lost heavily,-General Margallo being killed. But things were different in 1893 in that Spanish public opinion olamoured for the sending of. troops to avenge ■ the defeat; and ■ Campos had a_ comparatively easy task". On discovering that Spam was m earnest, the Sultan of Morocco, then a stronger force than now, exerted his authority over the Riff tribes, and promised to chastise them. • Marshal Campos was then sent to Fez to make a Meaty, in which be obtained ample redress and. the promise of-an indemnity of .£BOO 000' to say, this was .punctually paid by