Battle of Annual

Battle of Annual
Part of the Rif War
Carga del rio Igan: charge by the Cazadores de Alcántara cavalry regiment at the Igan River, Augusto Ferrer-Dalmau
Date 22 July – 9 August 1921 Location Annual, Morocco Result Rifian victory Massacre of Monte Arruit
Belligerents
Riffian tribes	Spain
Commanders and leaders
Abd el-Krim	Manuel Silvestre †
Strength
3,000[1]	20,000–23,000[2][3]
Casualties and losses
800 killed and wounded[4]	13,192 killed[5][6]

The Battle of Annual was fought on 22 July 1921 at Annual, in northeastern Morocco, between the Spanish Army and Rifian Berbers during the Rif War. The Spanish suffered a major military defeat, which is almost always referred to by the Spanish as the Disaster of Annual (Spanish: Desastre de Annual) which is widely considered to be the worst defeat suffered by the modern Spanish Army.^[7]

It resulted in major political crises, the fall of several governments, a military dictatorship led by Miguel Primo de Rivera, the abdication of King Alfonso XIII and a complete reassessment of the Spanish colonial policy toward the Rif as the entire Spanish colonial enterprise was at one point threatened.