Manuel P. villatoro@villatoromanuactualized:

A thousand and one times signed the editors and correspondents of ABC the word ‘blocao’ in the pages of this newspaper.Rare was dawn between 1909 and 1925 and not breakfast with a news in which they were summoned.That if one has risen here;that if another has been attacked there.Nothing weird since, at the beginning of the 20th century, these small strong vertebrus the Spanish defensive systems in North Africa.Easy and easy to build based on stones and earthlies, they helped the army to maintain the last redoubts of our battered Spanish empire in the Rif, which is to say a lot.

However, as true that the ‘blocaos’ could be built at the speed of lightning in the middle of the rif, it is also that they suffered from a series of problems that sometimes turned them into a deadly trap.

ABC himself confirmed it in an article published in 1921 under a holder as clear as painful: «The expensive and useless‘ blocao ’».In it, the famous special envoy Antonio Azpeítua confirmed that its price ranged between 30,000 and 40,000 pesetas (a considerable amount for the time) and that prevented the soldiers inside them «exit without running real danger to carrying such taskssimple how to make the water.

Origin and construction

But let's go in parts.What was, there for the beginning of the 20th century, a ‘blocao’?ABC also answered this question in a report published on August 26, 1909. In it it was specified that the term came from the merger of two German words: ‘block’ –Pedrusco or trunk– and ‘hause’ –casa–.Although its ultimate origin is Spanish, because it was Bernardino de Mendoza who presented Felipe III «a form of wooden mills and certain screws with which one [strong] could be assembled in a very short space of time, being manufactured by small timbers thatThey can be carried in any beast and not much volume and pregnancy when arming and disarming ».

The authors of both reports agreed to define the ‘blocaos’ as a wooden booth, with a roof of undulating sheet, whose walls were covered with earthly bags capable of stopping the enemy rifle fire.Although it was the 1909 journalist who most lavished to indicate that they used to have a single floor and that, when in strange cases, a second was added, it was with the objective that the unit destined inside made fire from a high point."According to the place that this occupies and the weapons available to the enemy, it is built with more or less solidity, although always superior to the penetration of rifle casualties," added the journalist in the text.

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They only forgot to indicate something that Juan García del Río and Carlos González Rosado emphasize in ‘Blocaos.Life and death in Marrueco ’(Almena): In principle, the wall of most Blocaos was reinforced in its lowest part with several rows of stones.However, that practice stopped being carried out as cumbersome that was and the time that delayed construction.These Spanish disseminators also emphasize that 75 earthly bags per linear parapet were needed to fortify the most common positions, while this amount increased to a hundred in the ‘blocaos’."In practice, the little ones, 4 by 4 meters, demanded 1,600," they complete.

Although the most humble blocaos ’barely had a room, the largest ones could have drums for machine guns, water wells, kitchen or a small cabin dedicated to communications and to save vituallas.In most, however, the liquid element shone by its absence and it was necessary to do the ‘Aguada’ or water search daily in the nearby sources.The maximum, however, was to use ingenuity.That caused a small opening on the sheet roofs to collect the rain.And, in the desert any idea was valid to take advantage of natural resources.

Once the main building, the garrison - between twelve and twenty men - was dedicated to digging latrines on the back and lifting a small fence.According to Azpeítua, it barely served "to hang clothes", but the truth is that it could avoid more than a disgust to the Spanish military.This is corroborated by the Spanish authors in their work, where they highlight their usefulness when it comes to stop enemy advances.In what does agree with the journalist is in the large amount of material that was necessary to build them: «For the construction of a 'blocao' of 4 by 4, 1,500 meters of fence were needed, 60 stations and 4 kilos ofstaples ».

Dangerous problems

For years, the ‘blocaos’ were located in key areas for Spanish advance in the RIF.From the outskirts of Kábilas Amigas to which it was intended to protect, to paths through which convoys traveled.A boat soon seemed cheap to manufacture - only sand and bags needed to build them - quick to lift and offer a relative security position from which to make fire.Why, then, the ABC reporter charged them?For several causes.The first, which only had one door."The garrison cannot leave without serious danger, because nothing is easier for the Moors than to have the only door they have."

The second paste that Azpeíta reviewed was its high cost, between 30,000 and 40,000 pesetas.A money that, together with the shortage of material and the lack of troops, caused them to build very separate from each other.In practice, and as demonstrated during Annual's disaster in 1921, that allowed the enemy to surround the position and wait until the garrison surrendered to hunger and thirst to not be able to carry out the ‘Aguada’.The ABC journalist influenced this in his text:

«Of course, the‘ Blocaos ’system will guarantee the tranquility of Morocco.The day we have a "blocao" stuck to the other covering the plain, and the mountain, and the hillside, and the valley, the area will be totally safe.This only opposes a matter of numbers: the hundreds, the thousands of blocaos that we have today, consume three quarters of the occupation army, and occupy the rest in their supply.However;As there is still more than 60 percent of the territory without occupying, we will need to triple the number of soldiers and the amount of millions to reach that ideal of pacification, which is little different from the project that consists of monitoring each Moor with a guard coupleCivil".

The reporter was more than sharp.In addition to predicting what would happen after the rise of Abd El-Krim, he confirmed that the 'blocaos' only served to immobilize the few forces with which Spain had-because they condemned the rear to the rear to hundreds of men-and multiplied the numberof caravans that had to be organized from the central camps.«The role assigned to‘ Blocao ’was the protection of roads between position and position.But every day they leave the positions of Infantry and Cavalry to guarantee the communication with the ‘Blocao’.That is, a guardian who needs him to keep him, ”he added.And he hit again.

Azpeítua also criticized the lousy strategic approach of the ‘blocaos’.And, being so far from each other, the Spanish army was impossible to help those who would have been surrounded: «When an enemy game, who never goes down from sixty men, attacks a 'blocao', it is miraculous than its defendersThey can resist until the column that leaves the closest position reaches help them ».The end of the article was equally clear: «The uselessness of the‘ blocao ’is demonstrated.However, every day they get new and, when we write this letter, engineers, protected by regular, are lifting another ».His analytical capacity cannot be denied, because shortly after this Fortinesian system demonstrated his Palmaria uselessness during the Rifeño advance after Annual's disaster.