Foreign News: The War in Morocco

Roughly, the fourth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich cuts across the territory of Abd-el-Krim,* from Alhucemas on the Mediterranean to Kifane on the western war frontier. Roughly the Spanish and the French decided last week to pinch together their forces along this meridian; pinched and pinched until their armies stood but 40 miles apart, with Ajdir, the capital of Abd-el-Krim between them.

The Spanish forces advanced up the heights for about a mile and a third; took Morro Viejo (400 ft. high), Malmussi (500 ft.) and Cuervas de Xauen (1,800 ft.). The French made a sudden assault upon the heights of Kifane, captured them, and pushed their line several miles beyond. Then the pinch subsided. There were too many mountains in the jaws of the pincers, for one thing.

Having inspected the Spanish land defenses, General Primo Rivera retired to the battleship Alfonso XIII, in Alhucemas Bay; and from thence issued peans of praise, in honor of General Saro and Fernandez Perez, who commanded the actual Spanish advance. Cried Primo, triumphant: “From now on there will be much war—If the rebels desire peace it will be they who ask for it. . . .Soon I shall be back in Madrid.”

Untroubled by mundane developments, the Sherifian Escadrille, composed of U. S. airmen, continued to soar into the Moroccan ether and drop therefrom tons of bombs.

The Escadrille unanimously announced: “We will allow nothing to stop us from carrying on the work upon which we have set out.” Next it painted an orange circle upon each of its planes, painted a charging black bull buffalo within, and zoomed off with more bombs. Critics admired the brushwork of Captain Lansing and Lieutenant Cousins, both well known in American-Parisian junior art circles. Captain James (“Red”) Mustane’s technique was declared so faulty as to have produced a sea lion instead of a bison.

*Orthographists battled and took toll of sach other over this famous name last week. When fully and correctly written and spelled, it is said to be “Amir Muhammad-ibn Abd-el-Karim.” Translated, ‘Amir” is the Arabic equivalent for “Prince”; “Muhammad,” of course, the Arabic spelling of “Mohammed” ; “ibn,” “son”; “Abd,” “of the servant”; and “ul-Karim,” “of the Gracious One” (i. e. God). The whole name may thus be translated “Prince Mohammed, Son of the Servant of God”; “Mohammad” being the Prince’s “given name,” and “Servant of God” his “family name.”

The spelling used by TIME is in accordance with the established practice of U. S. papers generally, and with that of the London Times, the Paris Matin. The Moscow Isvestia, irrepressible sheetlet, jumbles the name into one hyphenated word, Abdol-Krem.”