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Chemical Weapons In The Rif War
During the Third Rif War in Spanish Morocco between 1921 and 1927, the Spanish Army of Africa deployed chemical weapons in an attempt to put down the Berber rebellion against colonial rule in the region of Rif led by the guerrilla Abd el-Krim. Following the humiliation at the Battle of Annual in 1921, considered as the worst Spanish defeat in the 20th-century, the Spanish army pursued a vicious campaign of retribution involving the indiscriminate and routine dropping of toxic gas bombs targeting civilian populations, markets and rivers. These attacks in 1924 marked the first widespread employment of gas warfare in the post-WWI era and the second confirmed case of mustard gas being dropped from airplanes. A year later, Spain signed the Geneva Protocol that prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons in international conflict, while simultaneously employing these weapons across the Mediterranean. While Spain pursued its chemical campaign in secrecy from the public, ...
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Rif War (1920)
The Rif War () was an armed conflict fought from 1921 to 1926 between Spain (joined by History of France, France in 1924) and the Berbers, Berber tribes of the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco. Led by Abd el-Krim, the Riffians at first inflicted several defeats on the Spanish forces by using guerrilla tactics and captured European weapons. After France's military intervention against Abd el-Krim's forces and the major landing of Spanish troops at Alhucemas landing, Al Hoceima, considered the first amphibious landing in history to involve the use of tanks and aircraft, Abd el-Krim surrendered and was taken into exile. In July 1909, Spanish workers constructing a rail-bridge providing access to iron mines near Melilla were attacked by Rifian tribesmen. This incident led to the summoning of reinforcements from Spain itself. A series of skirmishes over the following weeks cost the Spanish over a thousand casualties. By September, the Spanish Army had 40,000 troops in n ...
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Ignacio Hidalgo De Cisneros
Ignacio Pío Juan Hidalgo de Cisneros y López-Montenegro (11 July 1896 – 9 February 1966) was a Spanish military aviator. He is known as commander of the Republican Air Force during the Spanish Civil War. He is also noted as one of few aristocrats who joined the Spanish Communist Party and author of war memoirs, published in the 1960s. Carlist Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros was descendant to an aristocratic family, many times noted in the history of Spain. The Hidalgos, originating from Léon, and the Cisneros, originating from Palencia, intermarried a number of times across the centuries. Ignacio's great-great-grandfather, Francisco Hidalgo de Cisneros y Seija (1730–1794), as a younger son did not inherit the family wealth; he left his native Gipuzkoa and rising to teniente general settled in Cartagena. His son and great-grandfather of Ignacio, Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros y de la Torre (1756–1829), became the next to last Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of t ...
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Phosgene
Phosgene is the organic chemical compound with the formula COCl2. It is a toxic, colorless gas; in low concentrations, its musty odor resembles that of freshly cut hay or grass. Phosgene is a valued and important industrial building block, especially for the production of precursors of polyurethanes and polycarbonate plastics. Phosgene is extremely poisonous and was used as a chemical weapon during World War I, where it was responsible for 85,000 deaths. It was a highly potent pulmonary irritant and quickly filled enemy trenches due to it being a heavy gas. It is classified as a Schedule 3 substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention. In addition to its industrial production, small amounts occur from the breakdown and the combustion of organochlorine compounds, such as chloroform. Structure and basic properties Phosgene is a planar molecule as predicted by VSEPR theory. The C=O distance is 1.18  Å, the C−Cl distance is 1.74 Å and the Cl−C−Cl angle is ...
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Melilla
Melilla ( , ; ; rif, Mřič ; ar, مليلية ) is an autonomous city of Spain located in north Africa. It lies on the eastern side of the Cape Three Forks, bordering Morocco and facing the Mediterranean Sea. It has an area of . It was part of the Province of Málaga until 14 March 1995, when the Statute of Autonomy of Melilla was passed. Melilla is one of the special member state territories of the European Union. Movements to and from the rest of the EU and Melilla are subject to specific rules, provided for ''inter alia'' in the Accession Agreement of Spain to the Schengen Convention. As of 2019, Melilla had a population of 86,487. The population is chiefly divided between people of Iberian and Riffian extraction. There is also a small number of Sephardic Jews and Sindhi Hindus. Regarding sociolinguistics, Melilla features a diglossia between the official Spanish (strong language) and Tarifit (weak language). Melilla, like the autonomous city of Ceuta and Spai ...
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Manuel Fernández Silvestre
Manuel Fernández Silvestre (December 16, 1871 – July 22, 1921) was a Spanish general. Silvestre was the son of a lieutenant colonel of artillery, Victor Fernández and Eleuteria Silvestre. In 1889 he enrolled in the Toledo Infantry Academy, where he met with the future high commissioner of Spanish Morocco, Dámaso Berenguer. He served as commander of the Spanish enclaves in Morocco: Ceuta from 1919 to 1920 and of Melilla from 1920 to 1921. Afterward he commanded all Spanish armies in Africa during the opening phase of the Riff War in which he suffered a massive and disastrous defeat at Annual. With the battle lost, Silvestre was either killed or committed suicide on July 22, 1921. This is today considered one of the worst defeats ever suffered by the contemporary Spanish army. Biography Youth Silvestre was born in El Caney in Spanish Cuba to the second marriage of his father, artillery lieutenant colonel Victor Fernandez y Pentiaga and his mother Eleuteria Silves ...
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Alfonso XIII
Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902. Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate, often presenting himself as a soldier-king. His effective reign started four years after the so-called 1898 Disaster, with various social factions projecting their expectations of national regeneration upon him. Similarly to other European monarchs of his time, he played an important political role, entailing a highly controversial use of his constitutional executive powers. His wedding with Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marked by a regicide attempt, from which he escaped unh ...
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Juan Picasso González
Juan Picasso González (22 August 1857 – 5 April 1935) was a Spanish military man and general who participated in the Rif War with the Spanish Army of Africa in late 19th century and early 20th century. He was a military investigation instructor known for "Expediente Picasso" ''(Picasso Files)'', an investigation report related to the historical defeat of the Spanish Army, some 20,000 soldiers and officers, of which some 8,000 were killed, against the Riffian rebels at the Battle of Annual, on July 1, 1921; known as ''The disaster of Annual''. He was the grand-uncle of the worldwide famous painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso, who was the son of one of his nieces. Born at Málaga in 1857, he joined the ''Academia de Estado Mayor'' in 1876, where he was one of the brightest students and an accomplished horse rider. He participated in a military confrontation in the North African seaside town of Melilla in October 1893. The 1893 military confrontation on Melilla Melilla, a Spa ...
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Congress Of Deputies (Spain)
The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members elected by constituencies (matching fifty Spanish provinces and two autonomous cities) by closed list proportional representation using the D'Hondt method. Deputies serve four-year terms. The presiding officer is the President of the Congress of Deputies, who is elected by the members thereof. It is the analogue to a speaker. In the Congress, MPs from the political parties, or groups of parties, form parliamentary groups. Groups must be formed by at least 15 deputies, but a group can also be formed with only five deputies if the parties got at least 5% of the nationwide vote, or 15% of the votes in the constituencies in which they ran. The deputies belonging to parties who cannot create their own parliamentary group form the Mixed Gro ...
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Indalecio Prieto
Indalecio Prieto Tuero (30 April 1883 – 11 February 1962) was a Spanish politician, a minister and one of the leading figures of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the years before and during the Second Spanish Republic. Early life Born in Oviedo in 1883, his father died when he was six years old. His mother moved him to Bilbao in 1891. From a young age, he survived by selling magazines in the street. He eventually obtained work as a stenographer at the daily newspaper ''La Voz de Vizcaya'', which led to a position as a copy editor and later a journalist at the rival daily ''El Liberal.'' He eventually became the director and owner of the newspaper. In 1899, at the age of 16, he had joined the PSOE. As a journalist in the first decade of the 20th century, Prieto became a leading figure of socialism in the Basque Country. Entering politics Spain's neutrality in World War I greatly benefited Spanish industry and commerce, but those benefits were not reflected in t ...
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Regulares
The Fuerzas Regulares Indígenas ("Indigenous Regular Forces"), known simply as the Regulares (Regulars), are volunteer infantry units of the Spanish Army, largely recruited in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Consisting of indigenous infantry and cavalry recruited in Spanish Morocco, forming part of the Army of Africa and officered by Spaniards, these troops played a significant role in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). History Establishment The Regulares were first raised in 1911 as a "batallón indígena" of infantry. Their formation came at a time when the Spanish army was expanding into the Moroccan hinterland from the long-held coastal enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Previously use had been made of Moroccan auxiliaries as scouts and the designation of "regulars" appears to have been intended to distinguish the newly raised force as a permanent unit of the Spanish army. Officers and some NCOs were seconded from Peninsular regiments. By 1914 four Groups (''Grupos'', ...
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Military Of Spain
The Spanish Armed Forces are in charge of guaranteeing the sovereignty and independence of the Kingdom of Spain, defending its territorial integrity and the constitutional order, according to the functions entrusted to them by the Constitution of 1978. They are composed of: the Army, the Air and Space Force, the Navy, the Royal Guard and the Military Emergencies Unit, as well as the so-called Common Corps. Spain is one of the most militarily powerful nations of the European Union ( EUFOR) and Eurocorps. It also occupies a prominent position in the structure of NATO, which it joined in 1982. It also has the oldest Marine Infantry in the world and the oldest permanent military units in the world: the '' Infantry Regiment "Inmemorial del Rey" No. 1'' and the '' Infantry Regiment "Soria" No. 9''. History During the 15th and 16th century, Spain evolved into Europe's foremost power with the voyages of Christopher Columbus leading to Spain acquiring vast lands in the Americas. Duri ...
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London School Of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, Sidney Webb, Beatrice Webb, Graham Wallas, and George Bernard Shaw, LSE joined the University of London in 1900 and established its first degree courses under the auspices of the university in 1901. LSE began awarding its degrees in its own name in 2008, prior to which it awarded degrees of the University of London. It became a university in its own right within the University of London in 2022. LSE is located in the London Borough of Camden and City of Westminster, Westminster, Central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn. The area is historically known as Clare Market. LSE has more than 11,000 students, just under seventy percent of whom come from outside the UK, and 3,300 staff. It h ...
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