Deadly Embrace

'Deadly Embrace is not only a well-written and thoroughly documented book but also a necessary and vital contribution to the study of the turbulent and often violent first four decades of twentieth century Spain.' -Francisco J. Romero Salvadó, Reviews in History'Sebastian Balfour's Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War is a solid piece of research following on from his last book, The End of Spanish Empire, 1898-1923 (1997)... Balfour renders fresh much familiar material, with original interpretations of figures obscured by their reputations... he offers an important interpretative revision of the bulk of the campaigns of 1924-27 against Abdel Krim and his 'Republic of the Rif', underlining the calculated use of poisonous gases... his argument is innovative and very convincing.' -Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, Times Literary SupplementDrawing on documents buried in archives for decades and interviews with war veterans, some over 100 years old, Sebastian Balfour demolishes traditional interpretations of the Spanish colonial and civil wars. Throwing fresh light on military cultures, racism, and the experience of the soldier in war, from the early twentieth century to the 1930s, he reveals the extraordinary brutality of the colonial war in Morocco and the export of that brutality to Spain in the Civil War. Above all the author exposes for the first time the story of the chemical warfare waged by Spain against Moroccans resisting the invasions of their lands.