ETHIOPIA HAD CHOSEN TO JOIN THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS IN 1923. Haile Selassie, agreeing with the stated principles of the League, believed his country safer by virtue of the protection that the self-esteemed body promised member states under its Articles of Collective Security. Just the year before, 1922, Mussolini had bullied his Fascist party to power in Italy. Selassie was not blind to the potential threat that posed to his country. Italian colonies bordered Ethiopia on two sides. Now, eleven years later, that threat had grown to a clear and present danger.
To the north of Ethiopia was the Italian colony of Eritrea. To the south lay Italian Somaliland. Italian troops were massing on both borders. It was clear, not just to Ethiopia but to the world at large, that Mussolini was preparing to attack the proud, independent Christian nation once called Abyssinia. Emperor Selassie formally appealed to the fifty-two member League to act on its covenant to provide collective security to prevent or stop any aggression perpetrated by one member state against another.
While Selassie appealed to the League to honor its covenant, he ordered his troops to pull back thirty kilometers from Ethiopia’s northern and southern borders to preclude any incident that might be used by Italy as an excuse for war. It was a futile gesture. The League went through the motions of addressing Selassie’s appeal fully aware that its bureaucratic procedures and formal deliberations could drag on for months even without internal interference. In the matter of Ethiopia, Italy provided internal interference at every turn, often aided by France.
French Premier Pierre Laval was concerned about its Fascist neighbor, Italy, as well Germany’s new government formed by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler. In January 1935, as an act of appeasement, Laval secretly concluded an agreement with Mussolini that conceded France’s disinterest in Ethiopia in return for Italian concessions in favor of French citizens living in Tunisia. The attitude of the British government’s foreign office was no better. The British foreign minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, privately assured Italy that the British Empire had no interest in Ethiopia whatsoever. He was concerned about any threat Fascist Italy’s West African colonies might pose to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. England and France thought it better for Mussolini’s attention to be directed toward conquering and colonizing a backward African country rather than stirring up trouble in Europe. What both France and Britain failed to take into account was that by accommodating Mussolini in his egregious grab for Ethiopia, the act would destroy the credibility of the League of Nations, its post Great War ideal of collective security, and, most damaging of all, the perceived balance of power in Europe. (One nation that did not fail to notice the weakness displayed by the League in regard to Fascist Italy was Hitler’s Germany. His National Socialist German Workers’ Party had adopted Mussolini’s Fascist rationale by 1933.)
Emperor Selassie realized too late that the faith he had placed in the League of Nations had been a mistake. It became sadly obvious to him that neither the League as a body nor a single member nation would step forward to try and prevent Fascist Italy from violating Ethiopia’s borders. Even worse, none offered Ethiopia any support or material aid. Italy, an industrialized European nation, home of the Vatican, seat of the Christian world, was poised to invade an ancient, agrarian African nation of twelve million people, a Christian nation since Biblical times, the only African country that had successfully resisted colonization by both the Islamic Ottoman Empire from the East and Christian Europe from the West.
Selassie knew the coming war would be one his people could not win, but they would fight rather than capitulate. His hope was that by fighting he could buy time, time to gain the attention of the world, time for the League of Nations to at least prevent Ethiopia from becoming a Fascist colony. The clock was ticking.
On September 27, 1935 in Asmara, capital city of Italian Eritrea, a telegram from Mussolini was delivered to the Italian field commander General Emilio de Bono. It read, in part, “You will attack at dawn on the third, repeat, third of October.”
As fate would have it, the next day, September 28, the following order was issued throughout Ethiopia by means of handbills and telegraphs, transported by donkey, runner, drums, and a handful of liaison aircraft:
All men and boys old enough to carry a spear will be mobilized and sent to Addis Ababa. Married men will take their wives to carry food and to cook. Men without wives will take any woman without a husband. Women with small children need not go. Those who are blind, cannot walk, or for any reason cannot carry a spear are exempted. Any able man who is found at home after receipt of this order will be hanged.
Signed: H.I.M. Haile Selassie I.
In the early morning darkness before dawn on October 3, young Italian troops moved sleepily to their assembly points on the north bank of the shallow Mareb River. Each man was issued four days ration, a half-gallon of water, and 110 rounds of ammunition. Some sat on the ground finishing breakfast. Some nervously checked and rechecked their equipment. Others gathered in small groups. There were the usual attempts by the young and inexperienced to smother pre-battle fear with jokes and bravado. Most left unsaid any reference to the battle Italy had fought and lost to the Ethiopians thirty-nine years before at Adowa in 1896. More than ten thousand of Italy’s finest troops had been killed in the humiliating defeat made more so by the fact that, for the first time, a modern European colonial power had been driven out of a black African nation.
The soldiers gathered at the river knew that a long, hard, uphill trek lay before them. There were few trails capable of use by motorized vehicles. Mules, not trucks, would have to serve as primary supply transport until passable vehicle routes could be built. Their initial goal, the town of Adowa, was situated at an elevation three thousand feet higher than their starting point. The Italian columns would have to climb rising desert terrain sparsely covered with thorn bush and laced with deep canyons and lava-strewn ravines. If existing routes could not be found, trails leading up steep escarpments would have to be cut. The troops were worried about being ambushed in such terrain. What made them even more nervous were rumors that in the war of ‘96, the Ethiopians castrated Italian prisoners. It gave the young soldiers pause to consider the part they were being ordered to play in building Mussolini’s New Roman Empire. As time grew short, their mouths became dry and talk died away. In the uncomfortable silence, each man was left to his own thoughts.
The order to advance came at the first light of dawn. Flag bearers unfurled their banners and trumpets blared in a triumphal procession befitting the new conquerors from Rome. The rising sun illuminated a hundred thousand soldiers wading across the shallow Mareb River in three large columns spread along a forty-mile front. In addition to modern rifles, de Bono’s army carried 6,000 machine guns and had at its disposal 700 pieces of artillery, 150 tracked CV 3/35 tanketts (small, two-man tanks carrying twin 8mm machine guns), 140 aircraft, several thousand motorized vehicles, and 6,000 mules. Held in reserve were 100,000 additional soldiers. At the same time there was a lesser, but formidable number of troops massing on Ethiopia’s southern border with Italian Somaliland. The crossing of the Mareb River on that morning, October 3, 1935, was the first step of a Fascist march that in four short years would engulf the world in war.
High above and slightly to the south of the Mareb, a tiny speck in the sky went unnoticed by the columns marching below. It was an obsolete French Potez 25a2 biplane, its single 450-horsepower engine throttled back to reduce noise. From five thousand feet above the river (eight thousand feet above sea level), a young black pilot from Gulfport, Mississippi looked down on the invading army below. Just seventeen years after the end of the Great War, Colonel John Charles Robinson unwittingly became the first American to witness the first Fascist step in the march toward World War II. (The Great War was not referred to as World War I until World War II broke across the globe.)
John had taken off from Adowa in the dim glow of false dawn to begin another routine patrol of the section of the northern Ethiopian border along which the Italians were encamped. As the African sunrise made a golden ribbon of the shallow Mareb River, the lone pilot knew this day was different. Clouds of dust streaming in the shallow light of a new day left no doubt that the Italian army was on the move. He was stunned by the panorama of troops and equipment advancing into Ethiopia. Robinson knew his job now was to gather as much information on the ongoing invasion as time allowed, and he knew time was short. Italian aircraft would be lifting off from the airfield at Asmara, Italian Eritrea, just 140 miles away; they would have armed aircraft—single-engine Imams or triengine Marchettis or Caproni 133s, any of which could outrun his obsolete, Lorraine-Dietrich powered Potez biplane.
John cursed himself for leaving his silk scarf in his room. Constantly turning his head to search the sky for enemy planes, he was rubbing his neck raw on his stiff uniform collar. He flew westward parallel to the Mareb River for a distance he estimated to be fifty miles before he arrived at the western flank of the invading army. Across that distance he had observed three massive columns sloshing across the Mareb into Ethiopia. There seemed to be no end to them. As he wheeled back to an eastward heading, his sharp eyes spotted six tiny dots in the sky to the northeast. It was time to run. John turned southward pointing the nose slightly down to gain speed toward Adowa where he would have to refuel before flying on to Addis Ababa with the terrible news. He found himself shivering and wondered if it was from the altitude chill of the open cockpit or cold fear.
Constantly checking the sky behind him, he began to relax when he found no following aircraft. His thoughts turned to the weeks that had so quickly passed since his arrival. He had to admit that up to now his time in Ethiopia had been fun—challenging and hard work, but fun. He enjoyed the training flights over the rugged, beautiful country. There were inhospitable stretches of mountainous desert that reminded him of pictures he had seen of the western badlands of North America, high fertile plateaus of grain and coffee farms, grasslands, rugged desert lowlands, beautiful lakes and rivers, jungle wilds, snowcapped mountain ranges, and the great Rift Valley. He had been surprised to find such friendly people in this exotic land. John smiled, remembering the military parade staged in the capital city. Belu Abaka, the nearly seven-foot-tall drum major of the Imperial Army Band, had led the procession past the emperor’s magnificent pavilion especially erected for the occasion in Cathedral Square. Invited to stand with the royal entourage, John had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing when the emperor’s royal lions that had escaped from their cages suddenly made an appearance. The crowds of spectators lining the parade route scattered in all directions. The emperor was not amused.
John was still smiling when Adowa appeared out of the haze a few miles ahead. Robinson thoughts quickly returned to the present. My God! How long have I been flying straight and level? He quickly whipped the Potez into a hard bank to the right and then to the left to check the sky behind. What the hell am I doing letting my mind wander? Turning his head as far to the left and right as his safety harness would allow, he made one more “S” turn to survey the sky for enemy planes before easing off the throttle and descending toward the rocky plateau ahead.
There was no airfield at Adowa, just a stretch of flat rocky ground at an elevation of six thousand feet on the edge of town. It would serve well enough. The townspeople had cleared the area of brick-size and larger stones. Weeks before, John had landed a Fokker tri-motor transport on the same stretch of ground.
Before landing, he flew low over the town to alert the ground crew that he was coming in for fuel from the supply he had delivered in the trimotor transport. It would have to be a quick turnaround. Enemy planes launched from Asmara Eritrea could appear at any time. Robinson wasted no time getting back into the air.
On the ground in Addis Ababa in just under four hours, he ordered his plane to be refueled before getting into a waiting car to be driven to the palace.
Once past the guards, he was greeted at the main entrance by the chamberlain and ushered through the palace halls directly to His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie, working in his study with two scribes. An interpreter was quickly summoned.
“Please be seated,” Selassie, speaking Amharic, communicated through his interpreter. “Tell me what you have seen, Colonel Robinson.”
John related all he had observed from the air, careful to speak slowly and pause often for the benefit of the interpreter. While the emperor listened to every detail with solemn attention, his scribes recorded the interpreter’s translation of John’s report and his answers to the emperor’s questions.
“The same may be taking place on our southern border with Italian Somaliland,” the emperor said.
John injected, “I expect Lt. Mulu Asha within two hours. He had the morning patrol over the southern border out of Kallafo on the Shibeli River.”
The emperor hesitated a moment, picking his words carefully. “I know what you must be thinking. We do not have enough machine guns, artillery, aircraft. We have not had time to train enough soldiers in modern warfare and we have too few radios. I naively thought joining the League of Nations in 1923 and the 1928 Treaty of Friendship with Italy would protect us. I was terribly wrong. We cannot win if we do not get help. Nonetheless, we will fight them, we will try to hurt them, slow them down at every mountain pass, river and ravine, hit them and run, bite their flanks, ambush them wherever we can. Our only hope is to buy time to gain the world’s attention. Surely someone will aid us in our struggle.” The emperor paused. “You are an American, and you have left your home far away. I realize this is not your war. If you want to leave, I will understand. But know this, you must make the decision now. My people and I need you, John Robinson, in more ways than you know, but the choice to go or stay must be yours.”
Robinson was silent for a long moment. He appreciated the frankness of the emperor’s words, knew he spoke the truth, could not shake thoughts of the dire risks of staying, had considered leaving. He thought of home, of his parents he had seen so seldom since leaving college, thought of the flying school in Chicago that he had left behind, and the good times, the parties, the women, all the things he had taken for granted that had made his life pleasant, even fun.
Does anyone back home really need me in the way these people need me? Here I command an air corps, a small one that probably can’t last long, but for now it’s mine. Hell, some white folks at airfields back home won’t even sell me gasoline. It’s for damn sure they won’t make me a colonel.
“Your majesty,” John finally spoke, “I will stand by the offer I accepted. I don’t know how long I can keep the Imperial Air Corps in the air, but I will do my best.”
Haile Selassie nodded his head. John bowed and walked toward the door.
“Colonel Robinson?” the emperor asked.
John turned. “Yes, your majesty?”
“If you stay, you will be entrusted with great responsibility.”
John answered, “I am staying, Your Majesty.”
The emperor replied, “One last thing before you return to your duties. I know you have asked for faster planes. I have been informed that in the event of war, the League of Nations intends to declare an embargo of war material against our nation and Italy. It will hardly make a difference to Italy, but we will greatly suffer from such an embargo. We ordered new fighter planes, but I have been informed England and France canceled the orders. If I can’t obtain military aircraft, perhaps you know of a civilian plane that might suit our purpose. It may just be possible for us to get such a machine.”
John thought a minute. “Your Majesty, there is a small American firm, Beechcraft, that has just introduced a new, fast, cabin-model. They call it a Stagger Wing. I believe if we can get one or two with the largest engine option, it would make a good courier plane, better and faster than anything we have now.”
The emperor nodded and Robinson took his leave.
When John returned to Akaki Airfield just southwest of the capital, he didn’t have to call together his pilots and ground crew. They were waiting for him, waiting for the news he carried. He stood silent a moment looking at the faces gathered around him: French pilots Andre Maillet, Paul Corriger, Gaston Vedel, and Comte Schatzberg; French mechanic Demeaux; Ethiopian pilots Mishka Babitcheff (whose father was Russian), Bahru Kaba, Asfaw Ali, and Tesfaye; and German pilot Baron H. H. von Engel. Language was just one more problem John had to face. He had learned a little French and less Amharic, but only a few phrases in each. He had arranged for an interpreter to be at the airfield at all times to man the telephone and the one radio they had—the one on duty to translate his words into Amharic for those who did not understand English. Paul Corriger did the same for Maillet and Demeaux who were not proficient in English.
John didn’t waste words. “We’re at war,” he told them. “The Italians are attacking from Eritrea. They may be attacking from Italian Somaliland to the south as well. When Mulu Asha returns, we will know what’s happening there.
“Now y’all listen good. I’ve done no fighting in the sky, but what I am telling you is what I have been taught by someone who has. He said the plane you don’t see is the one gonna kill you. We got no guns. They do. Our planes are slower than theirs. You see a dot in the sky or even think you do, run. It’ll be an enemy plane. Any of ’em can kill you.
“From this minute on, all aircraft will be fueled upon landing, parked away from others, and covered under brush or whatever can be found to hide ’em. That goes for wherever you land. The big planes are going to be hard to hide. If you can’t cover them completely, use anything you can find to break up their shape. The only time I want to see a plane in that hangar over there is when it needs work. The Italians gonna bomb every hangar they find.
“You pilots avoid contact with Italian aircraft any way you can. The emperor doesn’t need you bravely dying for Ethiopia. What he needs is aircraft and pilots. Do everything you can to preserve them. To keep from being seen, fly very low following the contours of the terrain or fly very high. If an Italian pilot sees you, you can bet he will come after you. They will think it great sport to shoot us down. We are so few that Italian hotshots will run all over one another trying to get credit for knocking one of us down. If they see a plane on the ground they will destroy it. We are all probably worth a medal to them. If that scares you, good. It scares me. It ought to make you more careful. You’re gonna have to use every trick you got. You know the country, the terrain, they don’t. Fly down into canyons, hide behind hills and mountains, and duck into clouds. If they shoot at you, zigzag, slide, slip, do anything to throw their aim off. You gotta constantly look for the enemy. Keep your head turning all the time. Never, never fly straight and level for more than a few seconds.
“Our job is to maintain communication between commanders in the field and headquarters here in the capital. We will deliver ammunition and medical supplies in the transports when we can. We have a hodgepodge of flyable aircraft, not enough pilots, and little to no chance for parts or replacements. Every plane is important. Most of us gonna wind up flying all day, every day. Do all you can to protect both your aircraft and your hide. The Italians can outrun everything we have. We are couriers, not warriors. I don’t want any heroes. The only advantage we have is knowing the terrain, knowing where to hide. Remember that and stay alive. Any questions?”
There was shocked silence. John dismissed everyone except his second-in-command, Corriger, who had been in charge of flying until John’s appointment.
“I hope you aren’t angry ’cause the emperor appointed me in command.”
“Mon ami, I am the one who told you that would happen, remember? My pay is the same. I am glad not to be responsible. With this war, you have an impossible job. Besides, all Frenchmen will be ordered back to France. I’ve told you France doesn’t want Frenchmen fighting Italians. Neither does Germany. Gaston Vedel, Comte Scharzberg, and Baron von Engel are leaving.”2
“But you won’t go?”
“I will stay as long as I can. So will Demeaux. Don’t ask me why. I really have no answer.”
John looked at his French friend. “I do. You are one crazy Frenchman.”
Corriger shrugged his shoulders and held up both hands.
John smiled. “Okay. Can you write down everything I just told the group in English, French, and Amharic? Get copies to everyone, especially ground crews and pilots who weren’t here?”
“Certainly.”
“When Lieutenant Mulu gets back, tell him he is now a captain and in command of the southern front. Tell him to pick three pilots to work with him. I will take the northern front. Paul, anytime I’m gone, you’re in charge here. Dispatch pilots and planes as ordered by headquarters. Always have at least two planes and crews warmed up and standing by from sunup to dusk. Demeaux’s in charge of maintenance and fuel. And Paul, you are not to fly unless it’s an emergency. Don’t look at me like that. Those are the emperor’s orders, not mine. Even in an emergency, he said you’re not to fly over enemy-held territory. Hell, if you go down over friendly territory he’s worried that his warriors will take you for an Italian and kill you. Any questions?”
Corriger shook his head.
Robinson nodded, walked out to the Potez, climbed in, and took off once again for Adowa.
Exhausted at the end of the first day’s march, the Italians had advanced little more than five miles after crossing the Mareb River. The terrain made for slow going. Although by sundown no shots had been fired, the young Italians were wary. There was an old African saying: “The darker the night, the bolder the lion.” The night could enfold black warriors in its darkness, warriors known to be silent and deadly with cold steel. Pickets were put out and camp guards doubled. The next morning several platoons awoke to find a single comrade among them with a slit throat. The news traveled fast. Few Italian soldiers slept much after that.
Because the Ethiopian army was not equal to the task of meeting the Italian invasion head-on, Haile Selassie’s plan was to allow the Italians to advance well inside Ethiopia before engaging them, where they would be dependent on long supply lines. He established his initial battle lines fifty miles from the frontier. This meant the abandonment of Adowa and Aksum. The emperor believed that by doing so the civilians of the towns would be spared. John’s orders were to standby in Adowa as long as possible in order to collect as much information about the Italian advance as could be gathered by Ethiopian scouts. Robinson was then to fly the information to headquarters in Addis Ababa.
In Adowa, Robinson reasoned that the rugged terrain coupled with hit-and-run raids by small Ethiopian bands would delay the enemy’s advanced units from reaching the town at least three or four full days. John knew the Italians had been informed that Adowa was an undefended, open city. He expected the enemy to march in to occupy the town without shelling it, but in anticipation of the Italians scouting Adowa from the air, he hid his plane under brush a safe distance from the edge of town. That aircraft was the only available means of rapidly transmitting vital information to the capital. Robinson planned to stay in town on the fourth of October and fly out at dawn on the fifth. He figured that would give enough time for runners to bring in initial information on the Italian advance—what units were engaged, their order of march, weapons and equipment, rate of advance, and other intelligence that would help Selassie, his war cabinet, and chieftains plan tactical strategy.
On October 4, Ras Seyoum Mangasha withdrew his small raiding force after making a lightning hit-and-run attack on an Italian scouting force. He and his men took shelter in a cave on a mountainside near Maryam Shoaitu. While having breakfast at first light on the morning of the fifth, Ras Mangasha heard a sound he had never heard before. He ran to the mouth of his hideout. The strange noise was the drone of fifty-four aircraft engines reverberating across the valley and off the cave walls. What he saw was eighteen tri-motor aircraft heading for Adowa from Eritrea. Having rarely seen an airplane in the Ethiopian sky, he was awed by the sight.
John had enlisted the aid of three scribes and established a message center in a building in Adowa used as a court of law. All night, runners had streamed in with reports from various scouting parties shadowing the Italian advance. The scribes recorded on paper every runner’s verbal report. Most able-bodied men had left Adowa when they received the emperor’s call to arms. Except for John, the scribes, and a few men guarding the Potez and cache of gasoline, all that remained in the town were women, children, and old men.
At the first dim light of dawn, Robinson was stuffing the reports into a leather courier pouch in preparation to fly them to Addis Ababa when he heard the sound of approaching aircraft. The first bomb explosion startled him, the second blew down the door to the street and knocked him off his feet. At first stunned, he recovered enough to realize what was happening. He grabbed the leather message pouch and ran into the street just as a Caproni tri-motor flew overhead. Each of the three six-plane squadrons came in succession to drop their bombs on a helpless town of little or no military value. The civilians had never witnessed squadrons of multi-engine aircraft roaring above their heads. They were terrified by the deafening staccato of exploding bombs.
Roofs collapsed. Walls tumbled into streets as the bombs were unleashed across the town. Lethal shrapnel, debris, and shards of glass mutilated bodies. The screams from the wounded and dying were more unbearable to John than the deafening explosions as he stood in the shattered doorway of the message center clutching the leather pouch with both hands. Blood streamed unnoticed from a cut on his cheek. His mind refused to work.
What seemed minutes to John was in reality a matter of seconds before rational thought returned in the midst of chaos. His job was to get the reports he had collected to Addis Ababa. As the noise of the Italian planes faded, Robinson began to make his way through wreckage-strewn streets toward the field at the edge of town where he hoped he would find the Potez in one piece.
The streets were filled with confused and frightened old men, screaming women, and terrified children, some walking, some standing dazed, many staggering in all directions through clouds of smoke and dust. The wounded, the dying, and the dead were everywhere. John stumbled and fell upon what he discovered to his horror was only half of what had been a human being. Getting to his feet, he saw a crying, blood-splattered baby lying beside a mutilated body. He lifted the child and passed it to a dazed woman sitting in a nearby doorway. Without looking at John or the child, she clutched the baby to her and began moaning and rocking back and forth. He continued toward his plane as the last of the Italian bombers disappeared northward toward Eritrea.
The Potez sat covered with brush as he had left it. Several white-clad, elderly warriors ran from hiding to help John clear the brush away from the plane. They had been guarding the cache of gasoline.
“Thank you” was one of the few phrases of Amharic that Robinson had learned. The men nodded, stepped away, picked up their spears, and walked solemnly toward the smoldering town.
God help them! These people are going to pit spears, swords, flesh, and courage—all they have—against machine guns, planes, tanks, and artillery.
John started the Potez’s engine, checked the gauges, swung the plane around checking the sky for enemies, turned into the wind, and pushed the throttle forward to the stop. The Potez withstood the bone-shaking abuse of the stone-rough field as it struggled to reach flying speed before lifting at last into smooth air lightly smeared with wisps of drifting smoke from the destroyed town.
Upon landing at the capital, Robinson spoke to no one except the driver of the waiting car. “The palace, fast!”
Driven directly to the palace, he was immediately ushered into the War Room. Emperor Selassie and his war cabinet stood around a huge table covered with maps. John stood awkwardly by the door a moment, the leather pouch full of reports held close to his chest with both hands. Everyone in the room turned to stare at him in silence. He diverted his eyes down for a moment, and for the first time he was aware of his appearance. He was covered in dust and dirt, his uniform and hands stained with blood, that of the dismembered torso he had fallen over and his own blood from the cut across his cheek. The wound had bled a line down the side of his face and throat, spilled over his shirt collar, and disappeared into his jacket. What those in the room saw was a mass of clotted blood and dirt stuck to the lower right quarter of his face. Fortunately, the wound looked worse than it would turn out to be.
After a moment, the royal interpreter spoke. “His Majesty will hear your report, Colonel Robinson.”
John handed over his courier pouch before describing in detail the aerial attack he had witnessed. He left out nothing: the description of the bombers, the terrified civilians, the destruction and death, everything he could remember. When he finished, there was dead silence in the room.
For a moment Selassie looked at John with deep sadness in his eyes. Seconds later, in fiery rage, the emperor slammed his fist on the table.
“In good faith we made treaties and agreements with Italy according to international protocol. They have not only violated every agreement they made with us, but the very precepts upon which the League of Nations was founded. Mussolini hasn’t even bothered declaring war on us. He has slaughtered our people in Adowa when I deliberately declared it an undefended open city. The Italians could have marched in without firing a shot or dropping a single bomb. By their cowardly attack on women and children they have revealed their hand. In this undeclared and unjustified war, they aim to kill our people whether we fight or not. They are the barbarians! We will declare war! We will fight them until we can fight no longer.”
The telephone rang. An aid picked up, listened for a moment, then hung up.
“Your Majesty, Captain Mulu Asha has just landed. The Italians have not moved from their line on our southern border with Italian Somaliland. The captain is on his way here to give a full report.”
The emperor thanked John and told him to get some rest, that he would receive new orders soon.
By the time Robinson reached his hotel, he hardly had enough strength left to walk down the hall to his room. He was tired, lonely, and frightened. Safe for the moment, he could not clear his mind of the horrific images he had seen. Starkly aware that war had only just begun, John knew he had been lucky to find his aircraft unscathed and escaped. He wondered if he would be so lucky the next time. He was shaking, perhaps from lack of sleep and fatigue, perhaps from shock.
When he opened the door he was surprised to find his room spotlessly clean. There was a bowl of fresh fruit on the table by the couch. He was even more surprised when the door to his bath opened and he found himself staring at an equally surprised, slim, young woman with beautiful almond eyes. She wore a traditional white kamis, a long loose dress. It had a gold chain around the waist. She returned his gaze with equal questioning. She looked toward the door, then back at John. Her perplexed expression slowly turned to a shy smile.
“Please,” she said and held out her hand.
“Who are you?” John managed to ask.
“Please,” she repeated, as she was often to do. It was the only word of English she knew. She stepped forward, took John’s hand, and led him to the bath, which was filled with hot, steaming water. John stood mute, wondering if the girl could feel him shaking inside. Before he could decide what he should do, he found himself naked, sitting in a tub of hot water with the girl kneeling beside the tub, bathing his filthy, aching body. He was too tired to be embarrassed and too in need of company to ask questions. The girl carefully cleaned his face and frowned at the cut across his cheek. The bleeding had stopped.
Whenever the lovely young lady said “please,” he simply did as she motioned for him to do. When she finished drying him, she led him to the bed. There she smiled and gently kissed the cut on his cheek. John wanted to cry, laugh, hold her desperately close, but most of all he wanted not to be alone with the fresh images of war dancing across his mind. She moved softly next to him and he held on to her tightly. They did not speak. They did not kiss. John simply laid his head upon her breast and clung to her as a child might cling to his mother. He knew his worst fear was of fear itself, the kind that can turn a man into a coward.
She held him until he fell asleep, and then she quietly gathered his soiled uniform, laid out a fresh one on the chair next to his bed, and let herself out of the apartment.
The next day, October 6, the Italians marched into what was left of the town of Adowa. As Emperor Selassie had ordered, not a shot had been fired in defense of the town. Some of the Italian troops, looking at the bombed ruins and pitiful people, began to wonder if Ethiopia could possibly be worth a war, much less the risk of their own lives.
In Rome there was joyous celebration upon receiving the news that at last Italy had avenged its shameful defeat at the hands of Ethiopia in 1896. Church bells rang and people turned out in the streets for a victory festival. Mussolini bathed in the adoration.
At Adowa, General De Bono ordered several battalions turned out for review in formal celebration of his great military victory. The ceremony was complete with banners, bugle fanfares, drums, and motion picture crews. It was meant as a grand gesture to boost the morale of the soldiers and, of course, make General De Bono the star of Italian motion picture news. The average soldier, standing in formation after hard days of marching uphill, would just as soon have skipped all ceremony in favor of a hot meal, a cigarette, and rest.
Mindful of the hundreds of thousands of warriors that could be waiting ahead, De Bono halted the most powerful war machine Africa had ever seen in order to consolidate his forces and bring up his artillery, tanks, and supplies before preceding deeper into Ethiopia. De Bono was a cautious man.
2 It should be noted that although he left Ethiopia, Gaston Vedel and his wife fought bravely in the French underground during WW II. Both were captured by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. Somehow they both survived. It is not known at this printing what happened to Comte Schatzberg or Baron H. H. von Engel.