Evening Star Newspaper, July 14, 1935, Page 57

- Stage — Screen Autos — Radio Part 4—10 Pages — FEATURES he Sunday Stad WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1935 Books — Music Children’s Page EYES OF A PUZZLED WORLD TURN TOWARD ETHIOPIA War Clouds Darken Central Africa Where Rivers Flozw to the Nile, Men Are Meat-Eat- ers, Mountains Are High and Impregnable. By John C. Henry. AIN that promises not to I a stop for another two months today is turning the lowlands of an entire country into mud, its mountain lakes into swelling reservoirs, its rivers into angry cascades that fight their way to lower ground. And beyond the gray skies that have been pouring their storms over a gorged countryside since early in June are rising new clouds, blacker and more potent. The country thus suffering » from its chronic discomfort, an annual rainy season, is Ethiopia‘! ‘The darker clouds that are slow- | ly piling up on the gray horizon are the black-shirted fighting men of Mussolini. Young, well trained, well equipped and eager for a taste of the glory that al- | ways surrounds the opening ofl warfare, they approach by sea | and will disembark at one of several friendly ports. Princi- pal of these mobilization points | are Assab and Massawa, in| Eritrea, on the Red Sea, and Mogadscio, in Italian Somaliland, | on the Indian Ocean. | Back in the foothills and the mountainous regions of a nation that now appears un- comfortably beset with troubles is gathering a defending force, however, that asks no quarter from either storms or soldiers. | Justification for this lack of fear | may be found in the fact that Ethiopia today is one of only three independent nations in all Africa, that her independence has not been maintained with the aid of reciprocal agreements with foreign powers such as have supported Egypt and Liberia, and that, most important of all, her own strength of arms against foreign foes has been tested and found not wanting. ETHIOPIA, known also with ac- curacy as Abyssinia, is an inland country of East-Central Africa. Comprising some 350,- 000 square miles, it is about as large as Texas and Oklahoma combined, its population num- bering some 10,000,000, or slightly less than that of New York State. On its northern boundary, cut- ting it off from the Red Sea, lies Eritrea, an Italian possession and one of the focal points from which the threatened hostilities are expected. On its western boundary from north to south lie the British-administered ter- ritories of the Sudan, Uganda and Kenya, while at the south- east is Italian Somaliland. It is the boundary between this territory and Ethiopia ‘that has been one of the subjects of dis- ute in the current controversy. ch and British Somaliland, on the Gulf of Aden, complete the encircling lands of the Ethiopian nation. The coast lands. which thus %ut off Ethiopia from the sed uplands, however, the & |vary in width from 40 to 250 miles and are narrowest on the | northeast border, where Eritrea | fronts the Red Sea. Massawa is| about 75 miles from the Ethio-| pian border, but runs, any in- | vading army into rough, moun- | tainous terrain almost at once.| Mogadiscio, in Italian Somali- land, is better than 100 miles| from the disputed boundary ter- | ritory, with the terrain of that region being low and sandy des- ert. Physical features of the coun- try offer striking contrasts con- tained in the lowland deserts of the south and the precipitous mountain ranges of the central and northern portions. Between these two main ranges lies the deep Rift Valley, and through both of them rush torrential rivers. In the comparative safety of the northern range is located Addis Ababa, capital and city of some 70,000. The Encyclopedia Britannica description of the terrain con- tains the following phrases: “Mountain ranges rise to 12,- 000 and over 15,000 feet, with fantastic forms and cut by enor- mous fissures, due to erosion; some are wider, others have the opposite walls but 200 or 300 yards apart, and fall almost| vertically thousands of feet. * * *| The valley between these hills and theé eastern escarpment is| one of the largest and most pro- found chasms in Africa. * * * The uplands usually slope north- west and nearly all the large rivers flow to the Nile. * * * The Takkaze, the true upper course of the Atbara, falls from about 7,000 feet in the central table- land to 2,500 feet in the tremen- dous crevasse through which it sweeps west, north, and west again to the western terraces and the Sudan. “DURING the rains the Tak- kaze (the ‘Terrible’) rises some 18 feet above its normal level, and at this time forms an impassable barrier between the northern and central provinces. * * * These rivers, which form .for 250 miles the west and south- west frontiers of Abyssinia, de- scend in great falls, and, like other Abyssinian streams, are unnavigable in their upper courses. * * * The chief eastward nearly 200 feet wide and 4 feet deep in the dry season, and dur- ing the floods rises 50 or 60 feet above low-water mark, thus in- undating the plains for many miles along both its banks. “Somaliland and the Danikil lowlands are hot and dry, with semi-desert conditions; the low- er basin of the Sobat is hot, swampy and malarious. * * * In the deeg valley of the Takkaze and Abbai conditions are torrid and fevers prevalent. On n}: bracing and the nights very bleak. * * * On the higher moun- tains the climate is Alpine.” In this description of the ter- ritory in which fighting must take place if war is pressed may be seen one of the chief reasons why the warrior leaders of Ethi- opia refuse tq be intimidated by threats of foreign invasion. Stu- dents of warfare have observed often that it was Russia, not the Russians, that drove Napoleon from Moscow, and it may be| Ethiopia, not the Ethiopians, that will prove most formidable | foe of Mussolini’s black-shirted youths. In addition, communication and transportation systems into the interior of Ethiopia are par- ticularly bad. A single line of railway covers the 780 miles from Addis Ababa to Jibuti, sea- ort in French Somaliland, but ew imgmved highways exist be- yond the limits of Addis Ababa or the one or_two dther sizable communities. For the most part, therefore, transport has been by mule or other pack animal, a system not conducive to efficient servicing of an invading army. Furthermore, conditions of ter- rain make any road-building | projects matters of considerable | labor and engineering skill and of great expense. This latter fact, plus perhaps a shrewd realization of the handicaps facing an invading army, explains to a great degree TURKEY L\ o % Ixenva ! BeLciaN coneo ){J’f’o 3 ugmvlsm | Upper left: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (A. P. Photo); Benito Mussolini, Premier of Italy (Wide World Photo). At top: The center of unrest in Abyssinia. Photo shows a view in Addis Ababa, capital of Abyssinia. (Wide World Photo.) At left: Barefoot soldiers of Emperor Haile Selassie, king of kings, equipped with rifles of latest design, bayonets and other accounterments of modern warfare. (A. P. Photo.) At right: Italian infantry on parade in Rome before taking off for Italian colonies in Africa near Ethiopia. (A. P. Photo.) Map: The scene of trouble in Africa between Ethiopia (shaded) and boot-like Italy, in upper left corner. Friction centers along the northern border of E}:hiop)ia and Italian Eritrea. Copyright, A. P. Wire- photo. why maps of this part of Africa years have seen a faster pace in show networks of highways suit- | this development. Principal ex- able for automobile travel in Italian Somaliland, Eritrea and in fact in all surrounding terri- tories, but all coming to a dead- | harqware. end stop at the Ethiopian fron- tiers. ALTHOUGH this lack of trans- portation facilities has been a retarding factor in commercial growth of the nation, . recent ports have been coffee and hides and the {rincipal imports have been salt, cotton fabrics and From America have been received automobiles in scattered numbers and for use almost entirely within Addis Ababa, Harar or Diredawa, the three largest municipalities. With the building of the railroad to Jibuti in 1917 the main chan- Russia, Not the Russians, Drove Napoleon From Moscowo— So Ethiopia, Not the Ethi- | ! nel of trade became that utility. For its own needs, Ethiopia is fortunate in having exceedingly fertile soil for agricultural pur- poses. In the lower regions| maize, wheat, barley, rye, cotton | and sugar cane are among the| crops, while the uplands add cof- | | fee in considerable amourit, veg- | | etables of all kinds and more wheat and barley. Most regions | of the country yield two crops| | per year, some yield three. In addition the land is well| adapted to stock raising and| enormous herds of cattle and| sheep abound throughout the| country. In time of war these, for the most part, may be driven into the mountain fastnesses, where they will be of most use to the defenders. Horses are numerous and strong, as are mules, that are bred in great quantities and are used for al types of work. In earlier years, as the tribes inhabiting the country devoted themselves to internecine war- fare, no large communities were established. In 1892, however, Emperor Menelik II built the nucleus of Addis Ababa in the mountain security of the Prov- ince of Shoa. Today it has be- | come a rambling municipality | covering almost as much ground | as the City of Washington, but | with a population of only 70,000. Spread over a cluster of hills, | the city centers around the im- | perial palace, audience hall and river is the Hawash. * * * It isy § In the mountain fastness of isolated Ethiopia. trek of more than two hours by caravan to the top of this precipitous wall, tle last battlement of the eastern range. The high plateau regian in the eastern and northewn part It is a ing climbs. of the country is scored by deep gullies and wide, eroded canyons, which entail hazardous descents and slow, gruel- opians, May Stop Mussolini’s B [4 a new Parliament building. On‘ the western edge of the city is the American Legation, rented from the priests who control the Menelik mausoleum fund. To the east are the spacious grounds of five European legations. Of interest, and probably sur- prising to many, is the fact that the real Ethiopian is not a Negro. Dark skinned, with hair that is usually kinky and lips that are often thick, the pure Ethiopian’s ancestry has been traced back to a combination of the Semitic and Hamitic races. In tempera- ment he is proud, courageous and patriotic. Of interest also is the fact that the ruling majority of Ethiopia have been Christians since early in the fourth century. At the present time the priesthood is extremely powerful and numbers nearly one-quarter of the male population. Their Christianity is of the Coptic, or Monophysite, ‘Muscle Men.” | a short while, but in 1893 Mene- lik denounced the pact on the grounds that the Italian and Amharic versions were different. Warfare opened in 1895, with the Italian arms being victorious | in early engagements near the | Eritrean border. As their forces pushed southward into Ethiopia proper, however. their- fortunes turned and reverses were suf- fered. Strengthened by rein- forcements in February of 1896, an Italian army of some 13,000 men again took the® offensive. Advancing in four brigades, the invaders found themselves cut off and overwhelmed one at a | time. About half the Italian | forces were killed, most of the | rest captured and tortured, and before additional Italian armies | could reach the scene the Ethio- " pians had withdrawn to the pro- | tection of their mountain coun- | try. Eventually a treaty was signed branch, which is believed to have | between the principals, followed originated in Egypt. soon after by trade-encouraging s agreements between _Ethiopia and several other European 'HE modern history of Ethio-|powers that had been attracted nia, containing the factors of | by the ability of the African em- foreign penetration, which seems | pire to defend itself against un- headed for a new climax in the| welcome invasion. Great Brit- current controversy with Italy,|ain, as might be expected, took may be considered as starting| the leadership in these agree- in the reign of King Theodore, ments, one of her principal who reached the height of his| co-operative projects with the power about 1855, when he had | Ethiopian empire being develop- all the mpre important factions| ment of plans for controlling the of the country subdued. During| flow of the Ethiopian lakes and the succeeding 10 years, however, | rivers feeding into the Nile, a Theodore became involved in|matter of great importance to differences with Great Britain, | Britain’s Egyptian possessions which resulted in the arrival of | and interests. N a British army under Sir Rob- T e ng some 32000 men| [JPON the death of Menelik the Copyrisht, Nations! Geo Society. Repreduced from National - Geo- i nwn.hlumn b permission. b apecial and aided by several native chiefs who were desirous of throwing off Theodore’s rule, the British force finally captured the Emperor’s stronghold, but then left the country as two local chiefs divided the powers of ruling certain provinces. The Napier expedition was the only one to penetrate Ethiopia suc- cessfully on a mission of war. At this time Italy made its first appearance on the scene in the form of an Italian trading com- pany, which established itself| in 1870 at Assab, a port on the Red Sea. Gradually this com- pany acquired more land, only to sell out completely to the Ital- ian government in 1882. This expansion of Italian influence along the Red Sea in what is now Eritrea worried both King John and Emperor Menelik, the two ruling Ethiopians, and major warfare was averted only after native troops had wiped out .a detachment of about Italian soldiers. Soom after, however, King John was killed in fighting | with dervish forces of the Sudan and Menelik became sole ruler in 1889, A treaty was made with Italy Ethiopian dynasty of rulers experienced troublous times for a spell, but moved toward a new stabilization upon the accession to power of one Ras Tafari as regent. By marriage, Ras Tafari secured succession to the throne in direct line from the House of Solomen and its supposed union with the Queen of Sheba, an im- (Continued on Page 2, Column 4.) Guide for Readers PART FOUR. 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