The Colonial War
1 - The Invasion of Morocco
2 - Calm Sea and Furious Wind
3 - A Disaster Foretold? The Spanish Defeat at Anual
4 - The Forging of a Colonial Army 1921-30
The Brutalisation of the Colonial War
5 - The Secret History of Chemical Warfare against Moroccans
6 - A Divided Army; Military Castes and Factions in the Colonial Army
7 - The Moorish Other
8 - Cultures, Conditions and Corruption in the Colonial Army
The Colonial Army from Republic to Civil War 1931-1939
9 - Repression and Conspiracy
10 - The Reconquest of Spain

Deadly Embrace
Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War

Sebastian Balfour

Combining military, political, cultural, social, and oral history, Sebastian Balfour narrates the development of a brutalised, interventionist army that played a crucial role in the victory of the Francoists in the Spanish Civil War. Spain's new colonial venture in Morocco in the early 20th-century turned into a bloody war against the tribes resisting the Spanish invasion of their lands.

After suffering a succession of heavy military disasters against some of the most accomplished guerrillas in the world, the Spanish army turned to chemical warfare and dropped massive quantities of mustard gas on civilians. Dr Balfour exposes this previously closely guarded secret using evidence from Spanish military archives and from survivors in Morocco. He also narrates the daily life of soldiers in the war as well as the self-images and tensions among the colonial officers.

After looking at the motives that drove Moroccans to resist or co-operate with Spain, the author describes the contradictory pictures among Spaniards of Moroccan collaborators and foes. (from Amazon.co.uk)

Sebastian Balfour is a professor of contemporary Spanish studies in the London School of Economics and Political Science

Price: £25.00 (Hardback)
Oxford University Press
ISBN : 0-19-925296-3
Publication date: 23 May 2002
368 pages, maps and 12pp b&w plates,
234mm x 156mm

Content and Graphics copyright Oxford University Press, 2002. All rights reserved. By permission of Oxford University Press.