REAL ABYSSINIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22260, 7 November 1935, Page 10

REAL ABYSSINIA

COLONEL KEY'S BOOK AUTHORITY ON COUNTRY y • MILITARY STRENGTH REVIEWED A timely book, "Tho Real Abyssinia," by Colonel C. F. Key, has just been published by Seeley, Service and Co., Ltd., London. Colonel Roy, who is a Commander of the Order of the Star of Ethiopia, knows tho country very well and has already written several books about it, among them being "Uncoriquered Abyssinia," "In the Country of the Blue Nile," and "The Romance of ' the Portuguese in Abyssinia." In his introduction, tho author says that "one leg in the League of Nations and tho other in the Middle Ages," is a not inapt description of the recent attitudo of and state of affairs generally in the old country of Ethiopia. Under the heading of "Abyssinia's Fighting Strength," ho writes: — Fighting might almost be described as the national industry of Abyssinia. fThey have not only fought against other nations through the centuries, but have fought almost incessantly among themselves. Tho love of fighting is in tho 'Abyssinian's blood; his earliest ambition, even in childhood, is to carry a rifle; and, until tho present Emperor started disarming the general mass of the population, practically every man carried a, rifle as we carry a walking•tick. All Potential Soldiers So it may be said that the Abyssinian army is the Abyssinian people, for every man is an actual or potential soldier; and the old Abyssinian Chronicles .(which is about all that he learns from the priests) are one long record of wars, which, ho is taught, have enabled him to maintain his freedom and his independence and to remain, in the wordß of the Emperor Menelik, "an island of Christians in a sea of pagans." And if ho is proud of his warliko record he lias somo reason to be. For , wherever Abyssinia has fought against foreigners as a nation she has been ultimately victorious, in spite of periods of unsuccess and the adverse results of individual actions. The Napier expedition of 1868 was not resisted by united Abyssinia, but by a handful of Theodore's remaining adherents, the bulk of his subjects being in rebellion against him; the Dervish victory at Gondar in 1887 was won over the forces of Gojam alone; and in the successes of January, 1865, tho Italians were opposed merely by Ras Mangesha and his own men. But when the forces of Abyssinia united they gained remarkable victories, often followed by no less remarkable consequences, even in modern times, such for example as those in 1875 and 1876 over the Egyptians, armed with modern weapons and led by Europeans; those in 1885, 1888 and 1889 over the Dervishes, in the first of which Osman Digna was defeated and nearly captured; and over the Italians in 1895 artd 1896. Tho reason is fairly obvious; a national emergency, and only a national emergency, brings the whole military organisation of the country into play; and the result is a large and formidable army of warriors which against anything like equal numbers and armament ij» undoubtedly a serious proposition. Effective Strength The number of men that could be brought into the field to-day is necessarily conjectural, for the population itself is an unknown quantity and the past, even the recent past, is hardly a safe guide. It has been estimated by a military writer that an army of 80,000 Abyseinians would be accompanied by about 30,000 women, slaves and camp follower, and the feeding of this enormous multitude necessarily presents many great difficulties, especially as there are no commissariat arrangements in our sense of the word. Every man is supposed to bring in with him a month's supply of food, but even if he does (which is. improbable), such a supply does not go far in a campaign . of any length in a country where it may take a month to get from the centre to any one of the frontiers. As a result the army has to live on the country, which is not over-cultivated at any time, and in which any one district is consequently quite unable to support a host of immigrants for anything beyond a very short while. Whatever might be the result of a national levy en masse it is improbable that any army exceeding appreciably that gathered together by Menelik would be formed, or if formed could he kept together as a unit, and in setting 250,000 as the probable maximum limit of an effective Abyssinian force I <lo not think I am understating the case, as conditions are at present. There is a further limiting factor which would operate to-day, and that is the supply of arms and ammunition. Military Capacity The bulk of the Abyssinians, properly so-called, fight on foot, the cavalry being drawn principally from the Galla contingents. These men are good fighti ers and also V>od horsemen, which is the more strange, as they only acquired their horses after their arrival in tho country in the sixteenth century. Apart from the European trained regiments, troops on tho march seem to be merely trotting along together in a crowd without order or organisation of any kind. And yet in fact this is not so at all, for when a halt is called the camp is marked out and arranged in an incredibly short space of time, each contingent seems to know its allotted place, and the apparent disorder of the march is shown to havo been disorder merely according to our ideas. I have often noticed the same 6ort of thing at peaceful ceremonies in which Abyssinian troops have taken part—the apparent chaos covering in reality quite good organisation on their own lines. At a fantasia at which I was present in Addis, for example, thousands of men belonging to the forces of many different chieftains were drawn up at one end of a hugo field, armed indiscriminately with rifles, swords, spears and shields, somo mounted, some on foot, al) apparently mixed up in a hopelessly confused, orderless rabble. And then from the densely-thronged thousands at the end of tho field at a given signal every chief, with all his ' retinue, in, turn galloped and raced to a nost in tho middle of the field and ' rode round it three times as hard as they could manage it to a rhvthmic chant, finally pulling out of the'whirling mass and taking up position on the other/ side of the field. It was wonderful, horses and mules and men, gold and silver trappings, modern rifles, embroidered cartrirlce belts, embossed shields, long; murderous-looking spears, great curved swords in velvet scabbards —thousands of them, apparently in hopeless confusion, but all really ordered, organised and planned out exceedingly well