EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23863, 14 January 1941, Page 6

EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN

. I Not as much attention as it merits has lately been given to the campaign on the frontiers of Italian East Africa. The rout of Mussolini's legions in Libya and Albania has tended to till the public eye. In justice to the Dominion and colonial forces engaged on the long and inhospitable frontiers of Kenya and the Sudan, it should be noted that the tide has turned against Italy there just as certainly, if less spectacularly, as on the fronts further north. Not only was Italy's advance into the Sudan and Kenya brought to a standstill months ago, but now the Imperial forces have retaken most of the posts earlier evacuated. Most important of these gains are Kassala, whose possession had enabled the Italians to cut one railway connecting the Sudan with the Red Sea, and Buna, in North Kenya. More important than these local successes is the fact mentioned by General Smuts, that the 'fotoe# facing "Italian" East

Africa are immobilising Italian forces at least as large as those engaged in the Western Desert. Had they not been pinned down in the south-east, they might have launched a converging movement against the Sudan. Such a distraction—and it had been planned—would have been extremely awkward for General Wavell, and would probably have prevented the decisive concentration against Graziani's army in the Western Desert. For this service the Empire has to thank the southern British forces and especially the South Africans in Kenya. In spite of political divisions in the Union, General Smuts has been able to serve the Empire s cause valiantly. Nor is this holding action the end. Now it is the turn of the British to converge on Kalian East Africa, the movement has already begun and, with the Emperor Haile Selassie's assistance from his base at Khartoum, may be much assisted by the spread of revolt iu Abyssinia.