 These "Peninsular" troops were poorly supplied and prepared, few had marksmanship skills and proper battle training, and widespread corruption was reported amongst the officer corps, reducing supplies and morale.Of the Spanish troops in Morocco in 1921, well over half were completely illiterate conscripts from the poorest elements of Spanish society who had been sent to Morocco with minimal training.Despite Silvestre's assurances that his equipment was sufficient to defeat the Rifians, in fact about three-quarters of the rifles at the Melilla arsenal were in shoddy condition due to poor maintenance, and a report from late 1920, which Silvestre had never bothered to read, warned that many of the rifles held there were either unusable or more of a danger to the soldier firing them than to the enemy.