PROGRESS OF WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 132, 30 November 1935, Page 15

PROGRESS OF WAR

ABYSSINIAN DRIVE

PROSPECTS OF INVADERS

BKITIgH CRITICAL

In 1914 the military writers and experts on tactics were busy on the outbreak of war in giving the public the benefit of their prophecies. With ye- \ gard to the Italo-Abyssinian conflict, i however, little so far fcas been writ-1 ten, says "Public Opinion." The "Manchester Guardian" leader writer says: "It has been suggested that the distances are too great, the mountains too high, and the objectives too few for successful use of. an air force, but British experience in India, Irak, and the Yemen has proved what aeroplanes can do in similar country. "Not only can they bomb villages and scatter forces, but the hopelessness of escape and-the folly of retaliation discourage warriors for whom the joy of fighting and the chance of booty are necessary conditions of war. "On the side of the Abyssinians stands Abyssinia with ' its deserts, mountains, and gorges in triple alliance. One • remembers the theories of Lawrence, the first intellectual and articulate master of guerrilla warfare, worked out for the Arab war against the Turks while he lay sick in his tent at Abu Markha. "Like the Arabs, the Abyssinians may find that 'battles are a mistake.' that 'a war of .contact must be abandoned for a war of detachment,' that they must 'develop a habit of never engaging the enemy and consequently never affording a target,' and that 'range is more than force, space greater than the power of armies.' But, unlike the Arabs, they have yet no railways to cut, no communications to harass, and they are fighting not to free their country but to keep it free. MUSi. BE THE SAME. "Just as circumstances may force the Italians to advance more rashly than they would choose, so the same circumstances may make the Abyssinians defend more openly than is wise for fear that to give ground at all would be to give it for ever. "But the principles must be the same—to use mobility and speed, to bewilder with movement, to avoid fighting except on ground of their own choice. But first the Abyssinians must learn to forget Adowa and the mass attack, to learn that tanks cannot be stopped by spears, and that to advance against machine-guns is not bravery but death. "Finally, as in all human affairs and even war, much will depend on the individual genius of the leaders. It is possible that Italy will find a Kitchener or a Lyautey; it is: to be hoped that Abyssinia will find a Moshesh, a Feisul, or an Abd-el-Krim." "There are three very contrasting theatres—north, south, and centre," says the "Observer." "We must never forget that the centre is the real line Of decision. The key, shown on every map, lies at Harrar, and further westward along the French railway to* wards Addis Ababa. That place itself, though the present capital— Abyssinia has known .many different capitals—is not. of d^isive significance. "The Abyssinians have hoped that this will be a war of communications according to their traditions and aptitudes. They are skilful in dispersing by day and concentrating overnight at unexpected points. For men on foot—and with naked feet though horny—they are wonderfully mobile. On the wild, rocky tracks known to themselves they can cover at a jogtrot remarkable distances in twentyfour hours. "Their whole reckoning has been that the invaders will be drawn into the labyrinthine fastnesses of Abyssinia proper—a very different region from most of the Ethiopian Empire— and that as communications become more lengthened, entangled, and dislocated, the Italians will be exhausted and vanquished in a guerrilla interminable. "It may be so. We doubt it; Huxley said that the Italian intelligence was the most flexible and ingenious in the world. They have given minute and acute study to their problem. There is no occasion whatever for them to conform to the well-known wishes of Addis Ababa and its advisers. They are very unlikely to do it. There is no need whatever for them to plunge into the heart of Abyssinia proper. They can seek sweeping victory by other means. ON ALL FRONTS. "There is full fighting on all their three fronts. In the north their present advance may well aim at consolidating their grip on the province or sub-kingdom of Tigre . without hazarding their communications by any march for hundreds of miles from that base. In the south, 'through Ogaden towards Harrar and the railway, and up the Webbe Shebeli, the country, though very difficult, is nothing like so perilous in its nature as Abyssinia proper. "And what of the centre? Assab, on the Hed Sea, has become the most heavily fortified of all the Italian bases. Thence the surest route—though the heat is terrible—leads towards the vital railway, and towards positions which are the keys of Addis Ababa itself. Without courting anything like an endless guerrilla in Abyssinia proper, Italy in a matter of months might possibly subdue the more practicable and profitable half of the Ethiopian empire, and bring, the present Negus or a successor to a decisive peace. Might? No one can guess the sequel yet." "The physical formation of the country," writes "Scrutator," in the "Sunday Times," '.'lends itself to the tactics of surprise and ambuscade. Approached across waterless wastes, Abyssinia may be compared to a huge rocky sponge, in which such roads as there are run in deep depressions, screened from each other's view by high and prccipitious hills across which lateral movement is impossible to machines or to heavy infantry. "The valleys are too narrow for the deployment of large numbers; and converging advances by different routes invite those sudden and overwhelming concentrations of mobile hillmen against each column in detail which gave the still rankling victory at Adowa. TO BLUNT ENTHUSIASM. "If the Abyssinians commit themselves to the defence of fixed positions they will soon be defeated, but guerrilla tactics, sudden disappearances and re-appearances on the lengthening lines of supply or in other unexpected places might blunt enthusiasm and induce weariness in the invaders. Much depends on the intelligence of the defenders. "The method of tile Palhan tribes on the North-West frontier of India arp their best model, but the Pathan has a natural gift for sporadic lighting which is not yet proved in the mixed races that form the population of Abyssinia. A leader of genius might' prolong the war for years. It is not a country that favours the movements

of tanks and aeroplanes, whose bombing raids, most effectual where the population is concentrated in towns, can do little damage in the open country." .

"For the Italians defeat in any pitched battle is unlikely, but regrettable incidents, disease, and weariness might make a long war in such a country insupportable. ' And even when'the towns have all been occupied and national resistance broken down, the war might still linger on for years. "The estimate of thirty years until the country is in a state of settled jPeace is German, but if it be understood to mean the. time that may elapse before the country ceases to be a drain ,on Italian resources, it is certainly not ' unreasonable. But the amount of misery, bloodshed, and waste of every kind that ;such estimates represent cries to . heaven for shame."