Fraternal Betrayal? The Spanish Army and the Decolonization of Morocco

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the Spanish army during the decolonization of Morocco, and it explores the connection between Spanish cultural perceptions – seen most clearly in the myth of Spanish-Moroccan brotherhood – and strategic and operational failures. It pays particular attention to the views of Spain’s last High Commissioner in Morocco, Lieutenant General Rafael García-Valiño, and the Franco dictatorship’s ideologue of Spanish imperialism in North Africa, the influential army officer and prolific writer Tomás García Figueras. Highlighting the diversity in outlooks within Spanish military culture, the study explores why key military africanistas did not see what was coming so that they might have prepared better for the departure process. This failure left the Spanish army in unwinnable, humiliating, and in some cases fatal predicaments, and it has had consequences that linger to this day.