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How did Spain’s losses in the Spanish-American War influence its colonial goals in Morocco?

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Spanish soldiers operate artillery cannons in a desert landscape near Melilla, with smoke billowing as a cannon fires during a 1930s battle. — Rif War Spanish artillery firing outside Melilla during the Rif War.

Spain’s humiliating defeat in the Spanish-American War (1898), which resulted in the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, left the nation with a profound sense of national pessimism and a perceived crisis of "degeneration."1

In the aftermath of this "Disaster," Spain sought to reestablish its status as a colonial power and restore its national prestige. This desire directly influenced its colonial goals in Morocco, where it aimed to solidify a presence that was contiguous with its long-held enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.2

By 1912, these ambitions were realized when, following British insistence on creating a buffer zone near Gibraltar, France granted Spain a protectorate "sublease" in northern Morocco. This move was a strategic effort to secure a new overseas foothold to replace the empire lost in the Americas, though the subsequent attempt to "pacify" the rugged, mountainous Rif region proved to be a difficult and costly military endeavor.2