Word: tribesmen
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...became evident that Maréchal Pétain did indeed mean business by his drive upon Bribane. Tanks advanced, smashing through frail adobe huts like mastodons treading upon eggshells. French 75's spotted the heights, and sent fragments of the rocky butte, deadly as shrapnel, splintering among the Moorish tribesmen. The whole mountain, which is topped by the stronghold village of Bribane, was enveloped by the smoke of burning crops and villages and the fumes of exploding shells. Armored cars and cavalry advanced up the easier slopes, while battalion after battalion of infantry stormed the steep western salient like a rising...
Despatches indicated that the French advance outnumbered the Riffian defenders by ten to one. Nevertheless, the almost fanatically dauntless tribesmen, certain of Paradise if they die in battle, weathered the terrific preliminary barrage, attacked the infantry at close quarters with deadly curved knives, and finally had to be tracked, bayonetted and bludgeoned into submission. Abd-el-Krim, never backward at war, received a shrapnel wound in the leg while directing the defense of Bribane; was rushed by loyal tribesmen to a safe distance...
...There was a battle of cavalry against barbed wire, of riflemen against machine guns, of 2,000 pagan tribesmen against a mere 10 French. . . Ignorant and heedless the Druse horsemen charged the barbed wire . . . pennons and war flags flying . . . Their horses were caught, slashed ... a hellish scene of carnage . . . men and blood mingling amide stones and barbed wire...
After describing the concentration of French troops, planes and armored cars at Suedia, (on the seacoast due west of Aleppo) and the raking of Druse villages by French 75's, Correspondent Seldes added specific details. He spoke of "pagan tribesmen riding horses like mountain goats" and of "a Druse gendarme who welcomes Americans because he had relatives who rode in Barnum's circus." Beside a Greek ikon in a native stone hut, he found "a faded lithograph of Lillian Russell† in tights...
...days later, the stronghold of the Sarsar massif was stormed and captured, and some 5,000 tribesmen surrendered unconditionally to the French and Spanish. General Riquelme and Colonel Freydenberg again breakfasted...