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Why did Abd el-Krim break with the Spanish authorities after World War I?

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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.

Abd el-Krim’s break with Spanish authorities was a gradual process fueled by political tensions during and after World War I. Although he served as a chief Islamic judge in Melilla, his family’s surreptitious support for German and Arab agents—a violation of Spain’s neutrality—led to his interrogation and incarceration by Spanish military authorities in 1915.1

This imprisonment left a bitter legacy. Following his release and return to his post in 1917, Abd el-Krim faced continued pressure from the Spanish to abandon his support for the German cause and to actively back the "pacification" of the central Rif. This demand placed him in an untenable position with his own people.1

Ultimately, these pressures led him to abandon his judgeship in December 1918. By 1920, he had definitively severed ties with the Spanish administration, joined his father in Ajdir, and began organizing the resistance that would lead to the Rif War.1