1 Declaration attributed to Napoléon Bonaparte after the Waterloo defeat (1815).

2 Two mainstream films were made using the Rif crisis as a backdrop: Il sergente Klems, filmed in 1971, which recounts the story of an old German soldier from the First World War who became a military leader in the army of Abd el-Krim; and Légionnaire, filmed in 1988, where the hero must flee France and heroically fights in the French Foreign Legion against Riffian assailants.

3 The term “war” has been deliberately chosen over international or internal armed conflict because this notion had not yet been codified by international law in the 1920s. In addition, the scale, duration and level of hostilities called for an explicit concept.

4 Serge Berstein and Pierre Milza, “Chapitre 5 – La Première Guerre Mondiale: remise en question de la réussite allemande”, in L'Allemagne de 1870 à nos jours, Armand Colin, Paris, 2014.

5 This episode is best known as the “Agadir Crisis”.

6 Treaty Concluded Between France and Morocco on 30 March 1912, for the Organization of the French Protectorate in the Sherifien Empire, Fez, 30 March 1912.

7 Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, Versailles, 28 June 1919 (entered into force on 10 January 1920) (Treaty of Versailles), Arts 141–6.

8 Dieste, Josep Lluís Mateo and Villanova, José Luis, “Les interventores du protectorat espagnol au Maroc : Contextes de production d'une connaissance politique des cabilas”, Cahiers d’études africaines, Vol. 211, No. 3, 2013Google Scholar.

9 Officers who had fought in Cuba formed the “africanistas”, a hard core wanting to strengthen Spain's colonial positions in Morocco.

10 The Tercio de Marruecos, also known as the Spanish Legion from 1937 in reference to the French legion, was created to conquer Algeria.

11 Francisco Franco was promoted to Commander in 1916 against the opinion of the High Military Council but with the support of Alphonso XIII's privy council. Franco would later receive the rank of Brigadier General in February 1926.

12 Charles Edmund Richard Pennell, “A Critical Investigation of the Opposition of the Rifi Confederation Led by Muhammad Bin ’Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi to Spanish Colonial Expansion in Northern Morocco, 1920–1925, and its Political and Social Background”, Vol. II, PhD Thesis, University of Leeds, Leeds, 1979, pp. 514–98.

13 The Kemalist experience refers to the political, economic and social principles advocated by Mustapha Kemal Atatürk in the 20th century and was designed to create a modern republican secular Turkish State.

14 Rashīd Riḍā, 1865–1935, was an Islamic scholar who formulated an intellectual response to the pressures of the modern Western world on traditional Islam.

15 Thomas Martel, “Stratégie et politique pendant la guerre du Rif (1921–1926)”, Thesis, École nationale des chartes, Paris, 2019.

16 This term, which means “pretender to the throne” comes from the name of an insurgent, Djelil al-Rogui, from the Rouga clan of the Seffian tribe, based in the Gharb region of Morocco, who in 1862 led the uprising in the Fez region.

17 For example, the British captain Charles A. P. Gardiner. See Mevliyar Er, “Abd-el-Krim al-Khattabi (1882–1963)”, in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020.

18 Some authors have expressed serious doubts about the modernist ambitions of Abd el-Krim and his true intentions to borrow the notion of statehood from the Kemalist model. See, for example, C. E. R. Pennell, above note 12.

19 In late 1925, he was invited to the Pan-Arab Congress in Cairo, which addressed the matter of a new caliphate, but ended in total failure.

20 The “Riff Republic” – The Agent-General for the “Government of the Riff” (Marocco) London [Captain C. A. P. Gardiner] – Transmits a copy of the “Declaration of State and Proclamation to all Nations” of the Government of the “Riff Republic”, United Nations Library & Archives Geneva, File R591/11/30635/12861, 31 August 1923, available at: https://archives.ungeneva.org/the-riff-republic-the-agent-general-for-the-government-of-the-riff-marocco-london-transmits-a-copy-of-the-declaration-of-state-and-proclamation-to-all-nations-of-the-government-of-the-riff-republic (all internet references were accessed in November 2022).

21 As of 1924–1925, the French authorities in Morocco were extremely concerned about the designation of Abd el-Krim as the new caliph by a Muslim congress due to meet in Cairo (1926). Finally, divisions within the Muslim world and systematic sabotage from various colonial powers led to the failure of the Congress and the designation of a new caliph was abandoned. See Crémadeills, Jacques, “La France, Abd-El-Krim et le problème du Khalifat (1924–1926). Remarques à propos de quelques archives inédites”, Cahiers de la Méditerranée, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1973CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Jan Pascal, “L'Armée française face à Abdelkrim ou la tentation de mener une guerre conventionnelle dans une guerre irrégulière 1924–1927”, Stratégique, No. 93-94-95-96, 2009, p. 321. See also Shannon Fleming, “Rif War, Expansion and Escalation”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 5 December 2019, available at: www.britannica.com/event/Rif-War; Vincent Courcelle-Labrousse and Nicolas Marmié, “Chapitre XVII – Al-Hoceim”, in La guerre du Rif : Maroc 1921–1926, Editions Tallendier, Paris, 2008; C. E. R. Pennell, above note 12.

23 Alain Ruscio, “1925, Guerre du Rif. L'alliance entre Pétain et Franco contre les insurgés marocains”, Orient XXI, 23 December 2020, available at: https://orientxxi.info/magazine/1925-guerre-du-rif-l-alliance-entre-petain-et-franco-contre-les-insurges,4388.

24 Chotzen, Anna, “Beyond Bounds: Morocco's Rif War and the Limits of International Law”, Humanity Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2014Google Scholar.

25 Giovanni Mantilla, Law Making under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2020.

26 Stefanie Schmahl, “The Development of International Humanitarian Law since the 19th Century”, in Thilo Marauhn and Heinhard Steiger (eds), Universality and Continuity in International Law, Eleven International Publishing, The Hague, 2011.

27 Mantilla, Giovanni, “Forum Isolation: Social Opprobrium and the Origins of the International Law of Internal Conflict”, International Organization, Vol. 72, No. 2, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Rob Mclaughlin, “Whither Recognition of Belligerency”, Articles of War, 17 September 2020, available at: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/whither-recognition-of-belligerency/; and G. Mantilla, above note 25, p. 80.

29 Henry Mark Lovat, Negotiating Civil War, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019.

30 The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement) is a network of components and consists of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the 191 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

31 Resolution XIV, 10th International Conference of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1921.

32 See Letter from Paul des Gouttes, Spanish Red Cross, ICRC Archives, CR-138-MD-2, 17 July 1924.

33 The Spanish specified that they considered the situation a civil war, so the ICRC needed to obtain the permission of the Riffian authorities as well as that of the Sultan of Morocco.

34 Lettre du CICR à la Croix-Rouge suisse informant que le CICR ne soutiendra pas la démarche du Lieutenant-Colonel Scherrer [Letter from the ICRC to the Swiss Red Cross informing that the ICRC will not support Lieutenant-Colonel Scherrer's approach], ICRC Archives, B CR-138, 18 April 1925.

35 Telegram sent by General Dámaso Berenguer, Spanish High Commissioner in Tetouan, 12 August 1921.

36 From 21 July 1921 to 9 August 2021.

37 On 9 August 2021, following a twelve-day siege, the Spanish garrison surrendered and was subsequently executed.

38 Phosgene, diphosgene, chloropicrin and mustard gas (also known as yperite).

39 Sebastian Balfour, Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.

40 Lion, Olivier, “Des armes maudites pour les sales guerres ? L'emploi des armes chimiques dans les conflits asymétriques”, Stratégique, No. 93-94-95, 2009, pp. 491–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Marouf Hasian, Jr, “ICRC Non-Interventionism and Spanish Gas Attacks in Morocco, 1921–1926”, in M. Hasian, Communicating during Humanitarian Medical Crises: The Consequences of Silence or “Témoignage”, Lexington Books, London, 2019.

42 S. Balfour, above note 39.

43 We know of at least two direct witnesses, being the Spanish pilots Pedro Tonda Bueno and Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros, who confirmed in their respective autobiographies that they had dropped bombs loaded with poison gas. See Ignacio Hidalgo de Cisneros, Cambio de rumba, Ikusager, Vitoria, 2001; Pedro Tonda, La vida y yo, México, 1974. See, also, Rachid Raha, Mimoun Charqi and Ahmed El Hamdaoui, La guerre chimique contre le Rif. Actes du colloque international sur l'utilisation des armes chimiques : Le cas de la guerre du Rif et ses conséquences, Les Editions Amazigh, Rabat, 2004.

44 Messari, Nizar, “L'utilisation des armes chimiques pendant la guerre du Rif (1921–1926) ou de l'ambiguïté des frontières et des séparations en politique”, Cultures & Conflits, Vol. 93, 2014Google Scholar.

45 Gases were used in Mesopotamia (Iraq) by the British (1920) and in Libya by Italian troops (1923–1924).

46 The European press, including La Gazette de Lausanne in Switzerland, regularly reported the use of mustard gas in several areas in the Rif. La Gazette de Lausanne, for example, wrote on 21 December 1924 that the Spanish air force was “carrying out intensive bombardments in the Andjera region and using asphyxiating gases”.

47 It has been shown that Germany provided the technology to produce poison gas, with the support of French arms suppliers. See Rudibert Kunz and Rolf-Dieter Müller, Giftgas gegen Abd el Krim: Deutschland, Spanien und der Gaskrieg in Spanisch-Marokko 1922–1927, Einzelschriften zur Militärgeschichte, Vol. 34, Verlag Rombach, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1990.

48 Letter of E. Boissier to the Spanish Red Cross, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 21 February 1925. Later E. Boissier informed the Spanish Red Cross that all references to the use of asphyxiating gases would be excluded from the report, which would merely discuss the committee's activities since July 1924. See Porte, Pablo La, “Humanitarian Assistance during the Rif War (Morocco, 1921–6): The International Committee of the Red Cross and ‘an Unfortunate Affair’”, Historical Research, Vol. 89, No. 243, 2016, p. 126Google Scholar.

49 M. Hasian, above note 41.

50 Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare. Geneva, 17 June 1925 (entered into force February 1928).

51 In a public statement, the ICRC openly referred to “this method of warfare which we cannot call other than criminal”. ICRC, “Appel aux belligérants contre l'emploi de gaz vénéneux”, Public Declaration, 6 February 1918, available at: www.icrc.org/fr/doc/resources/documents/misc/5fzgzt.htm.

52 Holmes, Ben, “The International Review of the Red Cross and the Protection of Civilians, c. 1919–1939”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 100, No. 907–909, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 R. Kunz and R.-D. Müller, above note 47.

54 Seven years later, during Italy's campaign in Ethiopia, launched by Mussolini in October 1935 and waged against the armies and people of the Negus, chemical weapons were again used extensively when Italian troops came up against unexpected resistance. This time, the ICRC could directly witness the use of gas but its mild protests to the Italian Red Cross were rejected because Italy considered that the 1925 Protocol did not exclude the possibility of their use in the case of justified reprisals.

55 V. Courcelle-Labrousse and N. Marmié, “Chapitre XVI – Les Ailes américaines du Sultan”, in V. Courcelle-Labrousse and N. Marmié, above note 22.

56 Lee Ferran, “When Rogue American Flyers Bombed a Moroccan Holy City”, InsideHook, 11 May 2018, available at: www.insidehook.com/article/history/rogue-american-flyers-bombed-moroccan-holy-city-chefchaouen.

57 Frederic Wehrey, “The Many Repercussions of the Rif Rebellion”, The New York Review of Books, 18 December 2021.

58 Regarding the enlistment of American citizens for military service in Morocco, see “The Secretary of State to Representative A. Piatt Andrew of Massachusetts”, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. II, 881.00/1151, Washington, DC, 21 October 1925, available at: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1925v02/d460.

59 Gerald Loftus, “Lafayette, We Are Here in Morocco's Rif”, Avuncular American Blog, 3 November 2011, available at: www.avuncularamerican.net/2011/11/lafayette-we-are-here-in-moroccos-rif.html.

60 Dirk Sasse, Franzosen, Briten und Deutsche im Rifkrieg 1921–1926: Spekulanten und Sympathisanten, Deserteure und Hasardeure im Dienste Abdelkrims, Pariser Historische Studien, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Oldenbourg, 2006.

61 In the Maghreb, militia levied by religious or governmental authority.

62 Letter from the Spanish Red Cross, ICRC Archives, 7 April 1925.

63 Captain de Féraudy, head of the district office, Ouezzane, 11 November 1921, in Pierre Sémard, La guerre du Rif, Librarie de l'humanité, Paris, 1926, p. 25.

64 Max Schiavon, La guerre du Rif : Un conflit colonial oublié – Maroc (1925–1926), Éditions Pierre de Taillac, Paris, 2016.

65 For example, Khouloud Haskouri, “Health Magazine Documents Spain's War Crimes in Morocco's Rif Region”, Morocco World News, 29 June 2021, available at: www.moroccoworldnews.com/2021/06/343143/health-magazine-documents-spains-war-crimes-in-moroccos-rif-region.

66 Douglas Porch, “Rif War”, Historynet, 6 December 2006, available at: www.historynet.com/rif-war/.

67 For example, the French Air Force dropped 1434.62 tons of bombs between May 1925 and 1926. See Krugler, Gilles, “La puissance aérienne dans la guerre du Rif : Le colonel Paul Armengaud et l’émergence de l'emploi tactique de l'aviation (1925–1928)”, Revue Historique des Armées, Vol. 268, 2012Google Scholar. See, also, Frédéric Danigo, “France and the Rif War: Lessons from a Forgotten Counter Insurgency War (Northern Morocco – April 1925–May 1927)”, Thesis, Marine Corps University, Command and Staff College, 2010.

68 In the summer of 2000, a study carried out by the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) of Rabat reported that 60% of thyroid cancer in the Nador region was linked to chemical weapons used seventy years earlier. Locally, residents called this disease “akhenzir”. See Taïeb Chadi, “Le gaz moutarde agent responsable de la propagation du cancer dans la région de Nador”, MarocHebdo, 3 June 2000, available at: www.maghress.com/fr/marochebdo/42106.

69 S. Balfour, above note 39.

70 Pictures uploaded by Mevlyar Er, available at: www.researchgate.net/figure/Spanish-soldiers-in-the-Rif-with-decapitated-heads_fig3_280233622.

71 For example, “The sufferers are not the fighting men but the poor peasantry who takes no part in the campaigns”, The Times, 28 February 1925.

72 Martínez-Antonio, Francisco Javier, “Resilient Modernisation: Morocco's Agency in Red Cross Projects From Hassan I to the Rif Republic, 1886–1926”, Asclepio, Vol. 66, No. 1, 2014CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Francisco Javier Martínez, “Portuguese Soldiers in Morocco's Rif War (1921–27): Participation, Prisoners and the Intervention of the Portuguese Red Cross”, in F. J. Martínez (ed.), Entangled Peripheries: New Contributions to the History of Portugal and Morocco, Publicações do Cidehus, Évora, 2020. See, also, V. Courcelle-Labrousse and N. Marmié, above note 22, p. 118.

74 Letter from the Spanish Red Cross informing ICRC that Riffian combatants are not belligerents but insurgents (révoltés in French) and should not be granted any form of aid. ICRC Archives, B CR-138-9, 27 November 1925.

75 See, for example, the letter from the French Red Cross, firmly criticizing the ICRC for having approached the colonial authorities in Rabat in order to join a French–Spanish evaluation mission in the conflict-affected regions. ICRC Archives, CR-138-167, 17 May 1926.

76 In Gabriel Pretus, “Humanitarian Relief in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39): The Independent and Non-Partisan Agencies”, Master's Thesis, Royal Holloway University of London, Department of History, 2011, p. 276. See, also, Letter from Delegate General Raymond Schlemmer to Golden, President of Save the Children Fund, ICRC Archives, B CR-138, 22 November 1924.

77 See Letter from Delegate General Raymond Schlemmer to Golden, ibid.

78 See, for example, P. La Porte, above note 48, p. 124.

79 The British Red Crescent, founded in 1912 in the United Kingdom, was created by Indian subjects of the Crown, initially to come to the aid of Muslims in the British Empire in need of humanitarian assistance in situations of conflict (“to aid sick and wounded in times of war”). It began its activities by helping Ottoman soldiers wounded in the Balkans. It was never recognized by the Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and seems to have ceased its activities in the beginning of the 1930s. See, for example, Jonathan Benthall and Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, The Charitable Crescent: Politics of Aid in the Muslim World, I.B. Tauris, London, 2003.

80 Poti, Giorgio, “Un microcosme de l'entre-deux-guerres : La Guerre du Rif (1921–1926) et la reconfiguration du complexe impérial euro-méditerranéen”, Cahiers de civilisation espagnole contemporaine, Vol. 18, 2017Google Scholar.

81 Matthias Schulz, “Dilemmas of ‘Geneva’ Humanitarian Internationalism: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Cross Movement, 1863–1918”, in Johannes Paulmann (ed.), Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016.

82 H. M. Lovat, Negotiating Civil War, above note 29.

83 As of September–October 1925, the ICRC started concrete preparations to send an exploratory mission to Morocco despite negative signals from Spanish and French authorities. See Mission Letter to Dr Fred Blanchod, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 24 October 1925.

84 In this regard, see the Report of Delegate General Raymond Schlemmer's Mission in Spain, ICRC Archives, BC-138-36, 10 November 1924.

85 See the ICRC's various exchanges between 1924 and 1925 with the Spanish Red Cross, The British Red Crescent Society, The Near and Middle East Association, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Turkish Red Crescent, the Swedish Red Cross, the Dutch Red Cross, the German Red Cross, the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and the French Red Cross, ICRC Archives, CR-138.

86 Lettre du Vice-Président du CICR Edmond Boissier à Akil Moukhtar, Vice-Président du Croissant-Rouge Turc, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 19 February 1925.

87 Report from Gerald Spencer Pryse transmitted to ICRC by NMEA, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 13 December 1924.

88 Mentha, Henri, “Mission à Tanger”, Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge et Bulletin International des Societes de la Croix-Rouge, Vol. 7, No. 84, 1925Google Scholar.

89 Abd el-Krim's request was transmitted by Alexander Langlet, correspondent of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

90 Letter from Prince Carl of Sweden and Norway to ICRC, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 30 April 1926.

91 Cancellation of Mission of R. Schlemmer and Dr Reverdin, ICRC Archives, CR-138, 28 April 1926.

92 B. Holmes, above note 52.

93 E.g. P. La Porte, above note 48.

94 Gehri, Maurice, “Mission d'enquête en Anatolie. (12–22 mai 1921)”, Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge et Bulletin International des Societes de la Croix-Rouge, Vol. 3, No. 31, 1921Google Scholar.

95 “La Croix-Rouge et le Rif”, Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge et Bulletin International des Societes de la Croix-Rouge, Vol. 7, No. 83, 1925.

96 Joshua Keating, “The Accidental Anti-Imperialist”, Slate, 30 June 2020, available at: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/woodrow-wilson-racism-self-determination.html.

97 The “Riff Republic” – The Agent-General for the “Government of the Riff” (Marocco) London, above note 20.

98 See, for example, Forsythe, David P., “The ICRC as Seen Through the Pages of the Review, 1869–1913: Personal Observations”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 100, No. 907/908/909, 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, also, Gouttes, Paul des, “Une thèse de doctorat en droit sur la Croix-Rouge”, Revue Internationale de la Croix-Rouge et Bulletin International des Societes de la Croix-Rouge, Vol. 4, No. 45, 1922Google Scholar. In this article, the ICRC Vice-President Paul des Gouttes stressed that having invited some Red Cross Societies from “the Dominions” to the Xth International Conference was rather a favour and an exception and should not in any way be considered as a recognition.

99 “In reply to your letter of October 7th I have the honour to inform you that the provisions of the Covenant concerning the settlement of disputes apply solely to disputes between States, the status of which has been generally recognised. They may be either Members or non-Members of the League.” Letter from Paul Mautoux, LN Director of the Political Section, in Dossier concerning various requests for League intervention in the Riff War, United Nations Library & Archives Geneva, File R591/11/41612/12861, 18 October 1925, available at: https://archives.ungeneva.org/dossier-concerning-various-requests-for-league-intervention-in-the-riff-war.

100 Porte, Pablo La, “‘Rien à ajouter’: The League of Nations and the Rif War (1921-1926)”, European History Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2011, pp. 76–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 See, in particular, Rainer Baudendistel, Between Bombs and Good Intentions: The Red Cross and the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1936, Berghahn Books, New York, 2006.

102 Lettre du Vice-Président Boissier, ICRC Archives, CR-138-70, 14 February 1925.

103 John F. Hutchinson, Champions of Charity: War and the Rise of the Red Cross, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1996.

104 From 17 to 25 June 1925, French and Spanish delegations met in Madrid to negotiate a series of agreements that committed both sides to, among other agreements, a military pact against the Republic of the Rif. See S. Fleming, above note 22.

105 Guennec, Nicole Le, “Le Parti communiste français et la guerre du Rif”, Le Mouvement social, No. 78, 1972, p. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Article by Waldemar Lanke, Aftonbladet, 8 May 1926.

107 Sven Hedin (1865–1962) was a Swedish geographer and explorer as well as a political public figure. He particularly condemned the intervention of foreign mercenaries in Morocco. See, also, Francisco Javier Martínez-Antonio, “An Individual Affair? Sven Hedin, Hans Langlet and the Intervention in Morocco's Rif War of the International Committee of the Red Cross”, Speech delivered during the “International Health Organizations (IHOs): The History for the Future Network” Conference, University of Strathclyde, 21 April 2016.

108 “The Riff tribes now engaged in fighting Spanish forces in districts which His Majesty's Government have recognised as forming a Spanish sphere of influence in Morocco must be regarded by His Majesty's Government as rebels against a friendly Power, and consequently His Majesty's Government must refuse to recognise or have any dealings with the emissaries of the Riff tribes now in London. I am not aware whether the Spanish Government are now negotiating with private English manufacturers for the purchase of aeroplanes. For the reasons explained in the first part of my answer, His Majesty's Government do not see their way to intervene, either through the League of Nations or otherwise.” Statement of Neville Chamberlain, Volume 157: debated on Friday 4 August 1922, UK Parliament, London.

109 Robert Gordon Canning was a dubious character who, in late 1925, visited Tangiers and rapidly became a military advisor, publicist and gunrunner for the Riffian rebellion. He created “the Rif Committee”, a rather eclectic organization which tried to convince the British authorities to support Abd el-Krim's project and lobby the French government to conclude a separate peace with the Riffian rebellion. He managed to concoct a peace proposal substituting independence for autonomy but, after weeks of dithering, the French rejected the Proposal. In the 1930s, he joined the British Fascist Union. See Heyen-Dubé, Thomas, “Fascism, War and the British Officer Class: The Case of Robert Gordon-Canning”, War & Society, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2021CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, also, V. Courcelle-Labrousse and N. Marmié, “Chapitre XX – Le Riff Committee et les sauterelles d'Ajdi”, in V. Courcelle-Labrousse and N. Marmié, above note 22.

110 In December 2018 Morocco World News reported that Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell was proposing to use the centenary of the Battle of Annual to mend fences with Morocco in relation to the Rif War. See Safaa Kasraoui, “Rif War: Spain Wants to ‘Heal Wounds’ of Gassing Moroccan Resistance”, Morocco World News, 28 December 2018, available at: www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/12/261799/rif-war-spain-morocco.

111 MEMO Middle-East Monitor, “Spain Urged to Investigate 1920s Toxic Gas Use in Morocco”, 12 February 2018, available at: www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180212-spain-urged-to-investigate-1920s-toxic-gas-use-in-morocco/.

112 Queen Victoria Eugénie sent a group of nurses from the Spanish Red Cross to Melilla to establish a new hospital. Led by the Duchess of La Victoria, María del Carmen Angoloti y Mesa, the group was composed of young women from Spain's upper classes.

113 In which estimates suggest that 800,000 people died. See Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Routledge, Abingdon, 2013, p. 64: “The number of Indians who died during the mutiny and the famines and epidemics that followed in its wake is far more difficult to compute. Attempts to do so based on comparisons between the very sketchy demographic data that we have for the period before 1857 with the census results of 1871 have suggested that the number of deaths might be around 800,000.”

114 Mads Bomholt Nielsen, Britain, Germany and Colonial Violence in South-West Africa, 1884–1919: The Herero and Nama Genocide, Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, Palgrave MacMillan, Cham, 2022, pp. 17–34. “Historians estimate that approximately 80,000 indigenous people were killed in the genocide. While these numbers are difficult to confirm, this figure represents about 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama people.” United States Holocaust Museum, “Herero and Nama Genocide”, available at: www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/herero-and-nama-genocide.

115 Mali, Niger, Chad, Afghanistan, etc.

116 Paul Ricœur, La Mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli, Points, Paris, 2000.

117 In this vein one might ask the delicate question of the transfer of the remains of General Franco from his mausoleum in Santa Cruz (l'Abadia Benedictina de la Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caidos) by the socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, which continues to cause controversy and political confrontation in the heart of Spanish political culture. See, for example, Olivier Perrin, “L'Espagne veut régler ses comptes avec les horreurs du franquisme”, Le Temps, Geneva, 25 June 2018, available at: www.letemps.ch/opinions/lespagne-veut-regler-comptes-horreurs-franquisme.

118 Tarik el-Idrissi, Arrhash (Veneno), 2007.

119 Benjamin Stora, La gangrène et l'oubli : La mémoire de la guerre d'Algérie, La Découverte/Poche, Paris, 2005.

120 An extermination camp set up by the Ustaše Government (1941–1945) in which several hundred thousand Serbian, Jewish and Roma prisoners died.

121 Nosova, Hanna, “Pierre Nora's Concept of Contrasting Memory and History”, International Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 4, 2021CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 Henry Rousso, La Hantise du passé, Textuel, Paris, 1998.

123 In places such as the Balkans, Cyprus or Iraq.

124 The historian Pierre Nora defines collective memory as “what remains of the past in the real-life experience of groups, or what those groups do with the past … It is sweeping and borderless, vague and jumbled. It is based on faith and only assimilates that which supports it.” The quote comes from Jacques Le Goff (ed.), La Nouvelle histoire, Retz, Paris, 1978, pp. 398–401.

125 Rieff, David, “… And if There Was Also a Duty to Forget, How Would We Think About History Then?”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 101, No. 910, 2019CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

126 See, for example, the declaration of António Gutteres, “La réconciliation ne saurait se substituer à la justice, ni même ouvrir la voie à l'amnistie pour les crimes les plus graves” (“Reconciliation, however, cannot be a substitute for accountability or pave the way for amnesty for serious crimes under international law”), United Nations Security Council, UN Doc. S/PV.8668, Press Release SC/14024, 10 November 2019, p. 3. See, also, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol. 1, 1998, available at: www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%201.pdf. In South Africa's TRC, the slogan “revealing is healing” crystallized ideas about the healing and conciliatory power of verbal memories of violence and abuses that were promoted in that commission. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was Chair of the TRC. See Rosalind Shaw, “Rethinking Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”, United States Institute of Peace, Special Report, February 2005, available at: www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr130.pdf.

127 To take the Opium War between the British Empire and China as an example, there has not been a symmetrical process of forgetting.

128 For the British, it is largely a forgotten episode belonging to a colonial era that disappeared for good in 1999 in Hong Kong. For the Chinese, it is etched into the collective consciousness, an act that founded modern China and an Asian “never again”.

129 For example, the work of Caroline Reeves, Hanna B. Krebs and Miwa Hirono on humanitarianism in China, e.g. Caroline Reeves, “China, ‘State-Centric’ Humanitarianism, and the International Committee of the Red Cross: A Historical Background”, in Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Patricia Daley (eds), Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations, Routledge, Abingdon, 2018; Hanna B. Krebs, “The ‘Chinese Way’? The Evolution of Chinese Humanitarianism”, Humanitarian Policy Group, 2014, available at: https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/9140.pdf; Hirono, Miwa, “Three Legacies of Humanitarianism in China”, Disasters, Vol. 37, 2013CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; the work of Rainer Baudendistel on the humanitarian action of the ICRC during the Ethiopian conflict (1935), above note 101; the work of Jennifer Polk on the foreign humanitarian aid of revolutionary Russia, e.g. Jennifer Ann Polk, “Constructive Efforts: The American Red Cross and YMCA in Revolutionary and Civil War Russia, 1917–24”, PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, 2012, available at: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/65487/3/Polk_Jennifer_A_201206_PhD_thesis.pdf; and the research of Jasmine Moussa on the origins of the concept of humanitarianism in the Middle East, e.g. Jasmine Moussa, Ancient Origins, Modern Actors: Defining Arabic Meanings of Humanitarianism, Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute, London, 2014, available at: http://cdn-odi-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/9290.pdf.

130 Dosse, François, “L'histoire à l’épreuve de la guerre des mémoires”, Cités, Vol. 33, No. 1, 2008, p. 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bertrand, Olivier, “Compte rendu de La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli de Paul Ricoeur, Paris, Seuil, 2000”, Politique et Sociétés, Vol. 20, No. 1Google Scholar.

131 In 1995, the orientalist Bernard Lewis (1916–2018) was found guilty by the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance for having expressed reservations about the genocidal character of the massacre of Armenian populations in 1915–1917.

132 See Rémond, René, “L'histoire et la Loi”, Études, Vol. 404, No. 6, 2006Google Scholar.

133 Pierre Boissier, André Durand, Catherine Rey-Schyrr, Françoise Perret and François Bugnion, Histoire du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, 2 vols, Institut Henry-Dunant, Geneva, 1978.

134 François Bugnion, The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Protection of War Victims, International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 2003, p. 299.

135 Michel Veuthey, Guérilla et droit humanitaire, 2nd ed., International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1983.

136 G. Poti, above note 80.

137 Even in the 1920s, a period when colonialism did not raise much controversy, the practice of denouncing abuses by competing powers was common. So much so, that in 1917 when an Irish officer, Thomas Leslie O'Reilly, denounced German military acts in Namibia (1904–1907) against the local population (“The Blue Book”), the Germans immediately threatened to do the same regarding British colonial expeditions, which provoked the immediate withdrawal of the report.

138 Francisco Javier Martínez-Antonio, “Weak Nation-States and the Limits of Humanitarian Aid: The Case of Morocco's Rif War, 1921–1927”, in J. Paulmann (ed.), above note 81.

139 Andrew Roberts, “Should we Judge Historical Figures by the Morals of Today?”, BBC World Histories Magazine, January 2018, available at: www.historyextra.com/period/modern/historical-figures-statues-judge-morals-today/.

140 Quoted in Sebastian Matthes, “L'IA pourrait engendrer un néocolonialisme, celui des données”, PME Magazine, 22 February 2022, available at: www.pme.ch/strategie/2022/03/08/lia-pourrait-engendrer-un-neocolonialisme-celui-des-donnees.

141 Max Weber, Le savant et le politique, Presses Électroniques de France, Paris, 2013.

142 Note from Delegate General Raymond Schlemmer following a meeting with the Spanish Ambassador Quinonès de Léon, ICRC Archives, B CR-138, 18 August 1925.