TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century

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<text> <title> (1930s) Mussolini </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1930s Highlights </history> <link 07992> <link 00044><link 00066><article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Mussolini </hdr> <body> [For years, the League of Nations had done little either to prevent its members from turning on each other in violence, or to punish them after it happened. By 1935, Poland had seized a good third of Lithuania, including its capital, Vilna; Japan had conquered four Chinese provinces and was hungry for more. Bolivia and Paraguay had been chewing at each other for years in the Chaco War. Adolf Hitler, aggressor, had lots of company. So when Benito Mussolini decided that Italy needed to flex her military muscles against Ethiopia, the primitive African kingdom with which his colony of Libya shared shifting and contested borders, he though he would meet little opposition. But Britain, which had apparently decided to make a kind of last stand for League principles but could not bring itself to suggest that force be used to deter aggression, proposed economic sanctions against Italy; useless sanctions, since France would not agree to an oil embargo, the only measure likely to have any effect. Mussolini went ahead with the invasion.] (October 14, 1935) At dawn the lean Semitic Negroes began moving down out of the eucalyptus forests toward the palace. The guards let 5,000 into the palace grounds. While the Emperor watched the mob from the window, his Chancellor Haile Wolde-Roufe read out in the Amharic tongue Ethiopia's first effort at a modern mobilization order: "Defend your country against the inferior Italian invader...God will be with us. All up! For the Emperor! For the country!" At the south entrance of the palace, a huge young Galla lifted his open hand and struck the great dull-brown Negarit (Emperor's) war drum. OMMMM...OMMMMM...Forty smaller kettledrums from the palace answered, rommommommommommomm. The booming throbbed, swelled, seemed to shake the air. On each of the mountain tops that hang over Addis Ababa other drummers smacked their drumheads. The monotonous, terrible call to war spread out from the capital, from mountain top to mountain top, across the wild gorges, jungles and plateaus of Ethiopia, until it rolled into the capitals of the six great rases (princes), whose war drums took it up, passed it on to the great chiefs and the little chiefs. To the farthest nomadic tribes, foraging no one knew where, couriers rode out by mule and camel. "Kitet!" was the word the criers and couriers gave, "Close ranks, unite!" The congested rage of six long months of restraint boiled up out of one of the world's most naturally savage peoples. Mobilization means nothing in Ethiopia. When the drums sound, the men go to their chiefs, the chiefs start for the enemy and the war is on. In every village compound, among the squalid mud hut, savage priests shouted the liturgy in the obscure language of Geez, slew sheep and cattle for a sacrifice and the warriors drank the hot blood. The old men shouted tall tales of past Ethiopian glories. The chiefs put on their lion-mane collars. The warriors took up their fighting arms, their wives, their pots and the village set out for the capital of the superior chief, leaving behind only the old, infirm and infantile. Whippet tanks were the peak of each column. Then came a fan-shaped formation of red-fezzed Askaris carrying automatic rifles, searching every inch of the ground for pitfalls, every rock for snipers. Then the main advance: infantrymen in single file slogging along the gutters and the centres of the rude roadways jammed with trucks, caisons, field pieces, and long lines of swaying supercilious camels. Labor battalions stripped to the waist, were mixed right in with the marching men. As the infantry advanced they sprang to work building roads for the heavy trucks to follow, singing: With the whiskers of the Negus we will make a little brush to polish up the boot of Benito Mussolini. The greatest modern army Africa has even seen was about to show its might against an unfortified cow village, and back in Rome editors plated great victory headlines for their papers and crowds milled through the streets, eager to celebrate. But hours passed, and the news did not come. What happened was that the Ethiopians were beginning to fight. Shrewdly they had waited until the Italian advance was slowed and tangled in the narrow mountain passes. Heavy trucks were tearing impassable ruts in the new roads almost as quickly as they were built. Artillery could not unlimber or deploy. Tanks were jammed between boulders. Then from behind thorn bushes and through the mud walls of shepherd huts came the raking fire of Ethiopian snipers. Each one of these Ethiopian hornet's nests had to be wiped out--by infantrymen alone. For the time being the machine age had gone haywire. For 24 hours the Italian advance was held up, then, well satisfied, the Ethiopians slunk further back into their mountains to try again. Belatedly the Italian flag went upon the ruins of empty Aduwa. First troops into the town were the 84th Infantry of the Gaviana division, who received the honor of leading the assault because they were the first troops to be sent to East Africa. With them they carried a strange piece of equipment, a fragment of a Roman column, brought all the way from Italy to be propped up in the market square of Aduwa in memory of the dead of 1896. [In Geneva, headquarters of the League, diplomats squirmed. Deals were put together. Everyone tried to get off the hook. The Italian invasion force pressed inexorably on, harried by Emperor Haile Selassie's guerrilla-style army.] (April 13, 1936) Marshal Badoglio, smiling over the pins in his staff map, was now eager to tackle Haile Selassie himself. Pencil in hand, the Marshal explained: "The Emperor has three choices. To attack and be defeated: to wait for out attack, and we will win anyway; or to retreat, which is disastrous for an army that lacks means of transport and proper organization for food and munitions." Haile Selassie and an Ethiopian Army of nearly 45,000 men were at Quoram, on the route south from Audwa. Ethiopia's Emperor stroked his silky black beard and picked Choice No. 1. Attacking with his European-trained bodyguard of 20,000 men, he headed straight for the Italian position on formidable Mai Cio. Twelve hours later his men were beaten back with heavy losses. For hours the Ethiopian Guard fought off the Alpini advance, firing from rock to rock, sword against bayonet. When the Ethiopian position became completely untenable, Italian officers saw for the first time an orderly planned retreat., But Italy had heavy artillery and plenty of bombs and pounded Ethiopia's second position just as hard. Finally the Imperial Guard broke and ran for its collective lives. Haile Selassie with only a fistful of followers streaked off toward Dessye, while the Roman Press burgeoned with reports that the Conquering Lion of Judah was about ready to sue for peace. (May 11, 1936) Back to his capital last week went Haile Selassie, no Conquering Lion of Judah. Along the dusty streets the tin-roofed shops of Armenian, Greek and East Indian traders were boarded up, almost all the houses of any pretension deserted. A watchful Italian plane circles lazily above Addis Ababa. No troops were in sight, the remnants of the Imperial Guard being encamped outside the open town. The little Emperor still had his famed beard, but now it was heavily streaked with grey. His arm, horribly burned by Italian mustard gas, was in bandages. With his Empire on its last legs, Haile Selassie drove quietly to the French Legation beyond the race track. There he explained to French minister Paul Bodard that he was morally bound to keep on fighting, but that with Italy's legions sweeping down unchecked from the north further defense of Addis Ababa was now impossible. It was best for the Empress and their two sons, Crown Prince Asfa Wassan and round-eyed Prince Makonnen, 13, to leave the country. That midnight Haile Selassie furtively boarded his imperial train at Addis Ababa, scuttled for the coast. With the Emperor in flight, all hell broke loose in Addis Ababa. Only the dregs of Ethiopia's soldiery were left behind in the doomed capital. They promptly went completely wild, looting shops, screaming curses at all whites, firing rifles into the air. The new palace, pride of Haile Selassie, was thrown open to the mob. In 24 hours the Ethiopian Empire went completely to pieces and all semblance of native law & order disappeared. Rioting in Addis Ababa grew worse by the hour. Most important attack was made on the Treasury's "gold house." A few loyal employees tried to save the remnant of Haile Selassie's gold with machine guns but sword-swinging looters rushed them, cut off their hands as they clung to their guns. Meanwhile General Badoglio's motorized column, pushing on as fast as possible, drew closer and closer. Italian aeroplanes reconnoitered over the city. At four o'clock Tuesday afternoon the Italians rumbled down the imperial highway into Addis Ababa. Natives fled south or tried to take refuge in the foreign compounds which they had been attacking. In Rome, which was a little late getting the news because Sir Sidney Barton radioed it first to London, delirious crowds poured into the streets to the din of crowds poured into the streets to the din of bells, whistles, sirens, and Benito Mussolini trumpeted: "The war with Ethiopia is over. Ethiopia is Italian territory!" (June 29, 1936) Every member of the House of Commons knew that the United Kingdom was about to climb down before the Italian Kingdom when handsome young British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden rose to speak. In the gallery sat Italian Ambassador Dino Grandi, whose spade beard turned from black to grey during the weeks and months of British-Italian threats and bickering over Ethiopia. Suavely Captain Eden, with the complete aplomb which he gained at Eton, Oxford and in the trenches, told the House that the pro-Ethiopian, pro-League and anti-Italian policy upon which his whole career and promotion to Foreign Secretary was based, is now no more. Said the Foreign Secretary sonorously: "His Majesty's Government, after mature consideration on advice which I, as Foreign Secretary, thought it my duty to give them, have come to the conclusion that there is no longer any utility in continuing these measures (Sanctions) against Italy." At once the Commons rang with cries of "Shame!" "Sabatoge!" and "Why don't you resign?" "The fact has got to be faced," said Captain Eden, "that Sanctions did not realize the purpose for which they were imposed. The Italian military campaign succeeded...If this means admitting failure, this is one instance in which it has got to be faced." </body> </article> </text>