CHAPTER 34

AS FAR AS EYES could see was a densely packed, living wall of men waiting for the ceremonial march. It was October 17, already two weeks after the invasion and only now was the Minister of War, Ras Mulugeta, ready to lead his seventy thousand soldiers north to meet the enemy.

In a huge open tent on a hill above the JanHoy Meda Imperial Parade Ground, Haile Sellassie, in his uniform of commander-in-chief, sat on his throne chair. The cabinet ministers squatted in front of him on the fine scarlet Persian rugs. The palace guards, with swords, rifles, and rhinoceros whips stood ready to maintain order.

In an area reserved for foreign dignitaries, Ceseli and Standish watched with fascination.

“Where do they all come from?” Ceseli asked.

“The emperor issued a kitet. That’s the summons to arms. The men are recruited from the Shoa Province. They owe the emperor two months of military service in exchange for the use of his land.”

Units of the Imperial Guard, in European uniforms though barefoot, marched with their heavy guns mounted on pack mules. There were fearsome war whoops as Mulugeta’s troops approached the emperor’s tent. Ceseli grabbed Standish’s arm as the first swordsman drew his weapons in front of the emperor.

“Don’t worry. They’re showing him their techniques of attacking and dismembering an enemy. It’s the way they show their bravery. You’ll get used to it.”

Indeed, such was the skill of these warriors that no blood was drawn during the entire review.

“Here’s Mulugeta,” Standish said just before noon, as fearsome yells and the beating of the Negarit War Drums announced his arrival.

A corps of horn blowers, in European dress, ran in front of him. Another corps of scarlet-turbaned drummers sat astride the hindquarters of the mules that carried the drums.

“He’s the minister of war?” Ceseli asked, shading her eyes from the sun as she studied the legendary seventy-year old aristocrat. The towering, grizzled figure with the face of an eagle had replaced the silk jodhpurs and lion-trimmed cloak he wore in Addis with a khaki field uniform. His chest bristled with the war decorations of Adowa and of Ethiopian civil wars.

As Mulugeta approached, the emperor rose to salute him. Laying his sword on the ground as a gesture of fealty, Mulugeta began repeating to his ruler the advice he had given many times before.

“JanHoy,” he shouted, using the emperor’s Amharic name, “I killed Italians before you were born. I helped preserve the country of which you are now emperor. I am still a soldier. Our old enemies have forgotten Adowa. I go to battle again, perhaps never to return. I await you in battle, O King.” Then the old warrior, using both arms, brandished his great sword above his head.

“Do not interest yourself overmuch in politics. Your weakness is that you trust foreigners too much. I am ready to die for my country and so are you. War is now the thing. But to conduct it you had better remain in Addis. I swear to you complete loyalty.”

Hearing this, Ceseli and Standish noticed that the emperor made no attempt to reply. What was he to answer to the general who intended to await him in battle, but at the same time advised him to stay in Addis?

The emperor watched the remainder of his troops make a turn around the parade ground. Hundreds of times in those four hours, he listened to the pleading of these men, who wanted rifles instead of spears and sticks.

Standish and Ceseli were not certain, but it seemed to them that at one point the emperor wept as he watched the stragglers pass by on their way north. He certainly knew better than anyone the fate to which he was forced to send these soldiers.

“It makes me sick to think how these people will be slaughtered,” Standish said. “Imagine what modern weapons will do to them.”

Ceseli thought of Marco, already in the Tigre, and wondered what he was doing. She missed him, but she also knew that going to help was something he needed very much to do. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“The emperor has been telling his soldiers to creep up behind the Italians and take them by surprise. Am I right?”

“You are. He understands that if he could persuade his chiefs and warriors to concentrate on guerrilla warfare, they might have at least a slim chance, but he also knows how proud his people are. He’s telling them to be cautious,” Standish said as they watched the straggling line leave the parade grounds. “But the total destruction of an enemy force, which is a basic concept in European military strategy, has never been part of the Ethiopian tradition. Here, a war is a series of battles or one climactic battle. Each battle should be fought in a single day, and if possible, in an open field where one side marches directly against the other. That’s how the Romans fought and nothing has changed.”

“And the winner?”

“Both sides agree that the winner of the last battle is the winner of the war. That’s how the Ethiopians defeated the Italians at Adowa, but that doesn’t mean the Ethiopians could win today, with these odds and with these arms.”

“There’s something else. The emperor has been telling his soldiers that they must not stop if their leader is killed.”

“Right. That’s because the Ethiopian soldier is totally loyal to his leader. But if that leader is killed, he won’t automatically obey orders from another person. He may even decide to go home.”

“Desert?”

“No. Although that may be the end result. Just that they have followed a beloved leader into battle and now, if he’s dead, the battle is over. They have to carry his body home and bury him in a consecrated place.”

“And the League? You believed in that?”

“I used to,” Standish said. “But it’s looking more and more like daydream diplomacy.”

By late that day, the line of soldiers heading north to Dessie was almost twenty miles long. They would take two weeks to reach Dessie, where half of them would stay with the nineteen year old Crown Prince, Asfa Wossen, while the others followed Mulugeta north to Makallé.

The day after Mulugeta and his army left for the north, Standish looked up from the paper Rutherford had asked him to draft to find Yifru standing near his desk. “I guess I was expecting you. You have a copy of the sanctions?”

“The communiqué has finally come from Geneva. It’s dated October 11, 1935. They took eight days to consider this an invasion.”

“What was the vote?”

“It was fifty to one. Italy, of course, voted against. Austria, Hungary and Albania all abstained.”

“Of course, they’re all Italian allies.”

“They established a committee to consider the imposition of sanctions. The sanctions are to begin on November 18. You’ve read them?”

“Yes.”

Standish knew that the sanctions were ridiculous. They would not paralyze any aggressor. They were merely what Italy would be willing to tolerate without withdrawing from the League.

The official communiqué from Washington, which were Standish’s orders, added some highlights on the absurdity of these exclusions. Aluminum was a perfect example. Washington quoted Britain’s Winston Churchill as saying that the export of aluminum to Italy was strictly forbidden. Yet aluminum was almost the only metal that Italy produced in quantities beyond her own needs. The importation of scrap iron and iron ore was sternly vetoed in the name of public justice. But the Italian metallurgical industry made very little use of them, and as steel billets and pig iron were not interfered with, Italy would not suffer from these sanctions.

“The emperor is disappointed, I know.”

“He has believed in the League with all his heart. That joining it was important for Ethiopia. That membership in the League would protect small countries like ours. The principle of collective security was visionary, you’ve agreed with me on that.”

“I have, yes,” Standish nodded.

“And that the League should take action. Some action. Any action. Perhaps if oil had been included in the sanctions, it could have had some real effect. But it isn’t.”

Standish looked at his friend. “I’m very sorry, Yifru.”

“I wish that were the official line,” Yifru replied. “But thank you anyhow.”

There would have been no way for either Standish or Yifru to estimate at that time what effect sanctions would have on the outcome of the war. Although the sanctions would not halt the aggressor, they were to have considerable effect on the Italian economy. The discontent of the Italian people had increased with the onset of the war, but when the sanctions were put in place in November, the Italian people rallied to their cause and to their leader. The response was electric. Poverty-stricken peasants, given a chance to join the army, walked hundreds of miles to enlist for wages far superior to what they might earn at home.

Mussolini set up his own restrictions on the consumption of meat, gas, wool, and electricity. New materials were used such as synthetics made from linen, and other natural fibers, and a campaign was launched to recycle metals. On meatless Fridays, restaurants served “sanctions soup” and although Michelangelo would have turned over in his grave, Rome’s elegant Piazza di Spagna was renamed for General Emilio De Bono.

Later that day, Yifru was sitting in the penumbra of his office as Ceseli knocked and then entered. She looked at him and turned to leave. “He wouldn’t believe me,” Yifru said, holding his head in his hands. “But I was right. Gugsa has gone over to the enemy, with more than a thousand men.”

“Gugsa? The emperor’s son-in-law?”

“How can a descendent of Emperor Yohannes become a traitor to Ethiopia?”

“When?” she asked.

“On October 11, I’m told. The same day the League decreed that there was a war going on. Imagine needing eight days to declare an invasion.”

“I thought he had more than ten thousand men?”

“But only twelve hundred went with him. The Italians are saying ten thousand, but Ras Seyoum says that it’s not true. The others have stayed loyal to the emperor. This will not be good for the morale of our soldiers. He is, after all, the emperor’s son-in-law. The Italians have instated him as the Ras of Tigre. He will need to look over his shoulder for the rest of his life.”

Ceseli had nothing to say.