SPAIN IN MOROCCO

Southland Times, Issue 19347, 12 September 1924, Page 5

SPAIN IN MOROCCO

A BRUSH WITH THE ENEMY. (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) MADRID, September 10. It is officially announced from Morocco that three Spanish columns defeated an enemy force near Kala, with the co-opera-tion of artillery and aeroplanes. The enemy suffered heavy casualties. The Spanish losses were sixteen of the Spanish troops and fourteen of the native levies. A new republic arises in northern Africa, according to accounts published in Paris, namely, the Riff, states the Boston Monitor. The tribes which combat the Spanish have as their President Abdel Krim, who, in order to procure the money necessary for his Government, has entered into a contract with a British financier. The homogeneity of this collection of tribes, which until recently were separate and undisciplined, is a fact which strikes French observers forcibly. There exists a Parliament and the President has European instruction. Le Matin, while admitting that there is much that is vague and nebulous in the Republic, which is still in its early stages, recalls the beginnings of the Angora Government which afterward dominated the whole of Turkey. There is a certain analogy, it says, between Angora and the Riff. Just as it was considered absurd to treat the men of Angora seriously at first, so insufficient attention has been given to the organisation of the Riff, which, even in a much more scattered condition, is responsible for the Spanish defeat.