Background
According to Sebastian Balfour, the motivation for the chemical attacks was based primarily on revenge for the defeat of the Spanish Army of Africa and their Moroccan recruits the Regulares at the Battle of Annual on July 22, 1921.
The Spanish defeat, the disaster of Annual, with 13,000 Spanish and colonial soldiers dead according to the official count, led to a major political crisis and a redefinition of Spanish colonial policy toward the Rif region. The political crisis led Indalecio Prieto to say in the Congress of Deputies: "We are at the most acute period of Spanish decadence. The campaign in Africa is a total failure, absolute, without extenuation, of the Spanish Army."
The Minister of War ordered the creation of an investigative commission, directed by the respected general Juan Picasso González, which eventually developed the Expediente Picasso report. Despite identifying numerous military mistakes, it did not, owing to obstructions raised by various ministers and judges, go so far as to lay political responsibility for the defeat. Popular opinion widely blamed King Alfonso XIII who, according to several sources, encouraged General Manuel Fernández Silvestre's irresponsible penetration of positions far from Melilla without having adequate defenses in his rear.
Even before the use of chemical weapons, the Spanish Army commonly resorted to brutal methods of repression, which in some cases included decapitation, after its initial defeats in the Second Rif War of 1909.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Weapons In The Rif War
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