Francisco Franco coup that had now degenerated into a civil war, and was strongly identified with the Carlist monarchists and not at all with the Falange, a party with Fascist leanings and connections ("phalanx", a far-right Spanish political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera), nor did he have good relations with Germany; Queipo de Llano and Cabanellas had both previously rebelled against the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera and were therefore discredited in some nationalist circles; and Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was in prison in Alicante (he would be executed a few months later) and
Fernando Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja Melilla, commanding the 2nd Taxdirt hunters squadron. He received a commendation for the Cross of Military Merit for his actions in battle. In the same year, after taking the village of Ulad Garen, he was promoted to Commander and awarded the Cross of María Cristina. Like his brother Miguel, Fernando criticised the Spanish intervention in Morocco. In 1920, by then lieutenant colonel, he was sent to the Cavalry Hunter Regiment of Alcántara nº14 as second commander. It was then that the so-called Disaster of Annual occurred. On 22 July 1921, Primo de Rivera had deployed the regiment’s four sabre squadrons