THE FRONT: Negatives

Stretched over a 40-mile front from Aksum to Aduwa to Adigrat, Italy’s Northern Army did not advance last week on its long expected drive into Ethiopia.

Though Marshal Pietro Badoglio made an 800-mile flight from G. H. Q. at Asmara straight across Ethiopia to the headquarters of the Southern Army, the expected simultaneous advance did not take place, nor was there any general shake-up in the Italian command.

Italian planes last week neither bombed the railroad, nor any important Ethiopian town, apparently under orders to save money. Many of the light bombs dropped previously failed to explode. In one village several nosey Ethiopians were blown to bits by banging a dud against a rock.

And up to this week neither Italy nor Ethiopia had officially declared war.