1937-09-03 — Page 10

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPER

SEPTEMBER

"PACIFICATION" OF ABYSSINIA

could not

remain more

than a day in Addis Ababa last winter without realising that the Italian campaign in Abyssinia was then in a critical phase. Mil- itary operations against Ras Desta the in the South. Ras Imru in West, and Ras Kassa's sons. in the North east were being pur- sued without much publicity but in grim earnest. Squadrons of Caproni bombers sallied forth at dawn, loaded to capacity with ex- plosives, and returned, late each afternoon with photographic proof of the "pacification" of suspected areas and the razing of forest "hide-outs." Under Colonel Mil-

a motorised column of three ano thousand Italian troops and two thousand Askari had fought its way westward to Lekempti early in December, to establish the first military base in Western Abys sinia, 225 miles from Addis Ababa. When, on December 16, 1936, Italian outposts had finally been established by the aid of aero planes at Dembi Dolo and Gam- bela, thirty-five miles from the Anglo-Sudan border, we eagerly accepted an invitation from Mar- shal Graziani to be the first for- eigners to visit the newly "sub- jugated” territory.

The road to Lekempti had just been cleared, so that we were able to make the first lap of our jour- ney by motor. The first 25 miles through the fertile highlands of Shoa were easy, thanks to the work of a Swiss engineer who had built the road for the Em-

#

How the Italians Control the Country from the Air

tractors ripped through the pri- meval thicket, followed by six- wheeled lorries specially adapted to the task of crumbling and level-. ling the thick vegetation. The track was then doused with petrol and set on fire. When this had burnt to the ground a company of soldiers did the preliminary dig- ging. In this fashion about 25 miles a day were cleared for im provement by an engineering corps which followed, erecting bridges and dams where needed. Then, after the army corps had moved on, came the regular road- labourers to convert the trail in- to a highway, each squad com- pleting from four to five miles a week, working on many sections. of the thoroughfare simultane ously.

We slept that night in the military hospital of the army en- campment at Gheddo, and next day took time off to shoot a few

of the black-and-white apes e

ahound in the jungle. On the

day's drive to Lekempti we had to follow a path no wider than five feet, cut through a green wall of vegetation six feet high.

The Italians had established their headquarters at Lekempti în a stone house which had for merly been the home of the Swed- ish Mission. Certainly the most.

a liking for "detch the thin, sweet beer of the country.

A radiogram from Addis Ababa announced that a Caproni plane would arrive at Lekempti the next day to take us to Dembi Dolo and Gambela, which had as yet no communication with the civil- ised world except by wireless and aeroplane. The airport of Lekempti presented a gruesome reminder of the hazards of scout- ing in a hostile country. At one end of the clearing were the skele- tons of the three Caproni bom bers which brought General Loca telli, ten high officials, and twenty soldiers from Addis Ababa the previous July to attempt to establish Italian rule. On their first night at Lekempti, while all were asleep inside the bombers, a band of several hundred natives, led by cadets from the Abyssinian Military Academy, poured volleys of machine gun bullets into the 'planes, killing everyone except a priest and one under-officer. Be- flecting that the fate which had befallen the Locatelli expedition less than six months before might easily be ours too in the event of a forced landing, we grimly took - our places in the silver-winged

bomber.

The four flying officers in charge of the plane, however, were in

of..

peror, the next forty miles, which peaceful moments on the trip high spirits For weeks they brought us to Ambo, were being rapidly improved by hundreds of Italian soldier-labourers working in heavily guarded squads. At Ambo we found the headquarters of the Fifth Brigade of Alpini, and after enjoying the hospitality of the officers' mess at luncheon were informed that, a lorry with thirty members of the brigade, on orders from Addis Ababa, would accompany us on the rest of the route. By that token we knew we were again in a war

zone

The road to Gheddo, the next military station, had been neatly sliced out of the African jungle only a few weeks before by the simple and speedy technique of Colonel Milano's column. First a procession of twenty caterpillar

were those I spent here resting in a little arbour overhung with Swedish roses, gazing across gent- ly undulating woodlands spread ing for miles to the west, where the Sudan begins and elephants and lions roam at will. At Lek- empti there also resided a native chief, with the title of Dedjas- match, who had evidently stor- ed away the thalers sent him by the Emperor to arm his subjects against the Italians and surren- dered to the latter at the first opportunity. Though his mili- tary reputation had not been en- hanced, his social standing was excellent. In our honour he gave a banquet at his "ghebi," at which we ate plentifully of roast gazelle and wild boar cooked in the native style and tried in vain to acquire

STATIONERY

that is

DIFFERENT

es of

CHIVALRY ANTIENT SCRIPT

IN FOUR FASHIONABLE.

COLOURS

YOUR NAZ ORANTTIATS

NEWSPAPER

LLDD.

had been attending strictly to business, which was, they ex- plained, dropping "visiting came through the six circular openings in the bottom of the 'plane salutations in the shape incendiary bombs to intro- *duce the new regime to" the inhabitants of remote villages. It got to be a bit monotonous, they admitted, except when, flying very low, they occasionally drew machine-gun fire from Bas Desta's well-armed rebels, whose forest shelters had so far defied dis- covery by scouting 'planes from General Liotta's headquarters at Jirgalem, in the south-west, General Geloso's encampment in the lake region to the south. Then they would rush back to their base with the position and photo- graphs of the suspected regions to direct a squadron of bombers towards Ras Desta's “nests" To be called away from active war- fare to conduct a sightseeing ex- cursion for our benefit was welcome interlude.

or

As the three-motored Caproni roared over the wilderness of Western Abyssinia, over moun- tain peaks still uncharted and nameless, over trackless waste- lands and hamlets in the heart of the jungle where no Italian bom- ber had yet tarried to leave a mes- sage of fear and destruction, was compelled to note the dis-

between the

west-

clai

by right

been mo

ten days

Itaban ommandant

found the

empti, comfortably installed fully furnished brick house shan- doned by the Swedish American missionaries. On our two-hour Journey by male to the residence we passed groups of Negroes who smilingly raised their hands to us in greeting. Unlike the Galla and Amhari people, whose lands had been ravaged in recent fighting, these natives did not glower sul lenly at the Italians but welcom- ed them in simple faith as suc- cessors to their Swedish teachers, the only white men they had ever known.

Gambela, too, the Italian out- *pust nearest the Anglo-Sudan frontier, eight degrees north of the Equator, had been a British trading concession since 1902 protected by an English officer and seventy Sudanese police. Here, barely a week before, the first Italian planes had landed, clear- ed space for an airport, and de posited a garrison and provisions. A radio station was set up, and four batteries of machine guns, but Gambela's thousand natives. were found to have no warlike intentions. For over thirty ye they had lived on the best of terms with Europeans that is, with the British, to whom they sold their coffee-beans and hides. At Gambela they had respected the English captain as their gov- ernor, and his khaki-uniformed police enjoyed far more prestige in their eyes than the tax-collect- ing emissari the Negus. They had no reason, oreover, to re- sent the arrival of the hoge Cap ronis and their Italian passen- gers, for Capitano de Rosa's first gesture was to open an impres sive-looking coffer containing 5,000 silver thalers brought from -Addis Ababa to distribute to his

new neighbours.

Our non-stop flight back to Addis Ababa bore east so that we might have an opportunity to view from the air the town of Gore, which at that time was claimed by certain newspaper dispatches in Europe to be still in the hands of the Abyssinian forces and loyal to the Emperor. We flew above the town at a height of about 1,000 feet, and I could see the principal "ghebr" surrounded by straw "takkuls” (native huts)

a town large enough to house 5,000 souls but little animation in the streets. Although the officers who flew with us assured me that the town was under the control of Italians, I could see no evidence of any Italian military encampments in the neighbour- hood, and the Italian flag was conspicuous by its absence. In explanation I was told that it was necessary first - to- Gore with a landing-field aeroplanes, but that an exp for this purpose shortly

A heavy rainstorm Caproni in the