ADVANCE IN ERITREA

Evening Star, Issue 23817, 22 February 1941, Page 9

ADVANCE IN ERITREA

VITAL THRUST TOWARDS MASSAWA ISOLATING ABYSSINIA It is perhaps natural, when discussing a number of offensives against such unfamiliar places as Kassala, Gallabat, Moyalc, and Jubaland, to lump them all together and view them as of equal significance. Actually, the British drive from Kassala far transcends the others in importance (writes the military correspondent of the Sydney ‘Morning Herald ’). The direction of the drive is now clear. The British have crossed the Kassala plain and are nearing the central Eritrean highlands, on route to the railway which leads down to Asmara and Massawa. From Biscia there is not only a railway, but a main road eastward, "and the Italians have greatly improved this in the last three years. They have made eastern Eritrea the focal point of their East African communications. Preferring not to rely on the more direct route through French Djibuti, they turned to Massawa. From this port they have built great highways, first to Goudar aud the Lake Tsana region, and secondly through Dessie to Addis Ababa. Between them those two “ Autostrade ” total nearly 1,100 miles, and the Italians have achieved an engineering miracle in insisting upon a maximum gradient of 7 per cent. Tile British drive eastward along the Eritrean railway and the main Mas-sawa-Agordat road would neutralise these new Italian roads by occupying the region' on which they converge. If French Djibuti bo simultaneously blockaded from Aden and Perim, the entire communications system of Abyssinia would he rendered meaningless. From the Italian point of view the trouble is that their concentration on hewing out arterial roads leading to Massawa led them to neglect the provision of minor connecting highways. It is the same strategical defect which caused them to look upon the Agordat railway as the first stage towards Khartoum, rather than as a breach opened by which their enemies might advance to Massawa. The final consequence of this strategical myopia can bo seen only as disastrous. If the British occupy Asmara and Massawa, the Italian soldiers and residents in Abyssinia will have no I'm; of retreat ' because French Somaliland is foreign territory, and the tracks to Mogadisc in are entirely inadequate.