THE FRONT: Between Rounds

INTERNATIONAL

The Declaration

Not yet declared up to this week by either Italy or Ethiopia was their War in Africa.

THE FRONT

Between Rounds

The armies of both Italy and Ethiopia rested on their arms last week, sparring warily.

In the North, the 110,000 Italians under General Emilio de Bono did no fighting but worked like demons to consolidate their position. This is an engineers’ war, and the sappers’ greatest feat last week was completing emergency landing fields at Adigrat and Aduwa and finishing the motor road from Aduwa back to Italy’s main base at Asmara. No sooner was the road finished than white-whiskered old General de Bono drove over it to Aduwa, covering in three hours the distance that had taken his men three days to capture.

After its capture Aduwa showed little evidence of fighting, none of bombing. The muddy streets were swept clean, festooned with flags and triumphal arches of branches. Just outside the town General de Bono changed from his automobile to the back of a skittish little Arab charger, rode through the streets and to the parade ground beyond the town. There he reviewed 11,000 of his men, dedicated the monument whose erection was the first move of the invading Italians.

Only 17 miles from Aduwa lies the holy city of Aksum, whose capture was the next step in the Italian advance. For days Italian forces had this mecca of the Coptic Christians practically surrounded. Scouting planes made hourly flights over it, could see no trace of Ethiopian troops. Still no attack was made, for in the centre of small Aksum stands a little crenelated stone church, holiest in the empire. There Ethiopia’s earliest kings are buried. In it was supposed to lie the true Ark of the Covenant. Before such a Christian shrine Italy dared risk no accident that could be used to breed atrocity stories throughout the Christian world. Day after the official annexation of Aduwa, holy Aksum surrendered without a shot being fired.

Seyoum’s Retreat. Meanwhile with splitting headaches and aching limbs members of the Italian tank corps were scouring the mountain sides and valleys searching for outposts and possible enemy ambuscades. The smallest tanks, ”fleas” to the troops, were scarcely shoulder-high. Last week “fleas” scrabbled through gullies, over boulders and along trails that would have stalled a goat. But always ahead of them was chunky, wily Ras Seyoum, onetime Governor of Aduwa, commander of the Ethiopian forces in the North.

It was Seyoum’s snipers, hiding in thorn bushes and behind the mud walls of shepherds’ huts, that had held up the Italian advance on Aduwa 24 hours. Early last week he had assembled a great army to defend Makale, more than 100 miles to the South, and was preparing for a fight. At week’s end, scouting planes found Ras Seyoum’s followers streaming still farther back into the mountains, always keeping at least two days ahead of the Italians.

In the South, Mussolini’s Somaliland army, creeping north under command of Italy’s ablest colonial fighter, lean General Graziani, was fighting harder and making more progress. Roads meant nothing in this rolling desert country where the advance was from water hole to water hole. Each hole was held by a little group of fanatical natives ready to charge and die at the first bang of a gun. It was slow and bloody business. General Graziani finally called out his bombing planes. Soon it was reported that the Italians were using a new, yellowish gas on the terrified Ethiopians.

This put the Ethiopian commander facing General Graziani, Dedjazmatch Nassibu, in a towering rage. His lion’s mane headdress trembling with emotion, that chieftain roared:

“The League of Nations! We fight and die while the League talks. … If only we could fight men in the manner of men! But we are facing an invader who uses the most fiendish methods known to warfare all because he is angered that we protect our homes and land. Our lands are being laid barren by gas; our mules, sheep, and cattle are dying in the fields.”

Naked and sweating, Dedjazmatch Nassibu’s men were digging like terriers in the foothills near Jijiga, preparing for a pitched battle to protect the country’s only railway. Sinking huge anti-tank pits, their bottoms filled with spiked stakes, many big enough to hold an entire platoon, the Ethiopians sang a new song as they worked: “Shanko ingiillar leba! The white men are the thieves of the ages.”

Good Son-In-Law. A valued ally to enraged Dedjazmatch Nassibu last week appeared in the person of Emperor Haile Selassie’s favorite son-in-law, swart, smart, bearded little Ras Desta Demtu. Two years ago he traveled to the U. S., paid an official call on President Roosevelt, presented him with two lion pelts (TIME, July 31, 1933). Last week found him at the head of an irregular army estimated at 200,000 preparing to join forces with a disgruntled white settler from Italian Somaliland, a onetime Boer Colonel named Siwiank, to try a surprise attack on General Graziani’s flank from the difficult waterless lands of Ogaden Province.

Bad Son-In-Law. Quite different from Ras Desta Demtu was Haile Selassie’s other son-in-law, bug-eyed little Haile Selassie Gugsa. Ruler of the eastern part of Tigre Province, he is a direct descendant of that King John of Ethiopia still venerated as a saint by the Coptic Church. His great-uncle, John IV, was a sworn enemy of fierce-whiskered old Emperor Menelik who later defeated the Italians at Aduwa. Ras Gugsa’s father kept up the family feud against Menelik and his grandnephew, Ethiopia’s present Emperor, was on the best of terms with the Italian administration in Eritrea. When he died three years ago it was in the arms of an Italian doctor. With his last breath he made his son Gugsa swear eternal friendship to Italy. Well aware of all this has been Emperor Haile Selassie. Some years ago to keep Ras Gugsa and his 15,000 warriors in line, the Emperor married the Tigre Chieftain to his second daughter, but she unfortunately died in childbirth. Last week Ras Gugsa found the time ripe to remember his father’s promises.

Perfidy and Perfume. Just outside Adigrat, first town captured in the Italian advance, a Fascist machine gun post last week saw a white flag waving in the thorn bushes. Soon an Ethiopian messenger went forward with important news. Gabbling excitedly, Italian officers hurried up, summoned an Army car. Into it stepped Ras Gugsa and a subordinate chief, Kassa Araia. They were hustled to the headquarters of General Ruggiero Santini, commander at Adigrat. Hours of conference followed while the word spread that the Emperor’s Bad-Son-In-Law was surrendering.

At Asmara, Ras Gugsa made formal obeisance to Commander De Bono. Enjoying the advantages of civilization to the full in a swank staff car, he rolled through the streets looking amiable but dazed. His first move was to pop into Asmara’s leading barber shop. There he made a bee line, sniffing ecstatically, for the perfume counter, loaded his pockets with odorous presents for his numerous female friends in the back country.

Should Il Duce decide to imitate the Japanese in Manchuria and set up a puppet kingdom in the part of Ethiopia already captured, he has a perfect Henry Pu Yi in Ras Gugsa, sainted King John’s descendant.