THE FRONT: Gugsa Makes Good

Mounted on a prancing ass, and with an embroidered velvet chieftain’s robe worn like a chasuble over his Italian army uniform, bug-eyed Haile Selassie Gugsa, traitorous son-in-law of Emperor Haile Selassie, rode in triumph last week into his old capital of Makale. Behind him an Italian officer held high the Italian flag that had been hauled down from the same Ethiopian village in 1896. Behind them both marched a carefully chosen column of Ras Gugsa’s own tribesmen, tall fezzed Askaris from Eritrea, and a regiment of Italian Bersaglieri, cock feathers fluttering from their helmets. A thumping band blared Giovinezza while overhead buzzed 21 Caproni bombers led by Il Duce’s ace son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano. Ras Gugsa, whose tribesmen had led the unopposed Italian advance all the way from Aduwa, 60 miles to the north last week, moved into his palace. By order of white bearded General Emilio de Bono he had been appointed the puppet Governor of Tigre Province for Italy. Italian regulars moved out to level camping ground on the outskirts of Makale.

Strategically that camping ground was of more value to Italy than the just-captured muddy little town behind it, for it was a practical airplane landing field, one of the few in Ethiopia, and a priceless advance base for Italian bombers and scouting planes.

Even the oversized telescope of General de Bono could find no massing of Ethiopians near Makale. Scouts reported many a party of them moving toward Amba Alaji, a natural mountain fortress overlooking the trail to Dessye and Addis Ababa. As if to keep up interest in their dreary little war, Italians talked darkly of a pitched battle to come.

Dessye, Ethiopia’s main headquarters for its northern defense forces, is 150 miles from Makale and half way to Addis Ababa. There until last week stayed thin-faced big-eyed Crown Prince Asfa Wassan at the head of 10,000 well equipped warriors. Suddenly he stepped from an airplane at Addis Ababa, to be warmly greeted by his father the Emperor and hustled off to the palace. There he would rule, courtiers said, on behalf of Haile Selassie when and if the Emperor goes to the front.

“Certain Negro.” Rushing to the Palace went “the Black Eagle of Harlem.” Colonel Hubert Fauntleroy Julian, to answer personally a canard, emanating from Rome, that a “certain American Negro” was plotting to kill the Emperor. After a tense scene Colonel Julian fainted, then recovered, emerged smiling and cried:

“Millions of American Negroes have too much confidence in me to believe such reports. . . . The Emperor has granted me permission to accompany any one of three major generals to the front.”

In the South. From the beginning Italy’s bloodless advance in the north has been an elaborate exercise in transport, communication and roadbuilding. Real war broke with a rush over the southern front last week, left the Ethiopian forces dazed and partly demoralized, swept Italian troops under General Rudolfo Graziani forward 145 miles in four days, bringing them almost within direct striking distance of Jijiga, Harar and Ethiopia’s only railway. At strategic Gorrahei and Sassa Baneh on the Fafan River the wild Ethiopian troops had no thought of a strategic retreat. They fought until they fell, but could not stop the Italian advance. Commander at Gorrahei was Azaye Afework, European-trained and with some of the best troops in all Ethiopia. To his Emperor he swore never to retreat while life was in him. Trying to bring down an Italian bombing plane with his own hands, he found his abdomen suddenly ripped open by a bomb splinter. He died enroute to Jijiga where a frightened people were just beginning to realize how little effect brave hearts and bare hands have against modern arms.