Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  As Bruno walked back to the Imperial Hotel, he wondered why it mattered that Ceseli Larson should like him. At least respect him.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE SITUATION IN ETHIOPIA was growing more and more ominous by the time that Rutherford received a disquieting telegram from Washington. He hurried to Standish’s office waving it in front of him.

  “Standish, I think you better go see Yifru, immediately. I’d like him to hear this from us rather than our close allies,” he said, handing Standish a telegram on the coarse yellowed paper.

  “What is it?”

  “Congress passed the Neutrality Act on August 31. Goddamn those bastards! That means no help for Ethiopia. We will be neutral to every country in war. Just that this is the only one staring us in the face. And we are utterly involved in it. The president has signed it.”

  Standish looked at Rutherford in utter disbelief. “How could he do this?”

  “There’s also a message from President Roosevelt. Look at it so you know what to answer if there are questions. I’m sure there will be. You can give the emperor the full text, if you want. It’s public property.”

  Standish took the telegram and began to read it as Rutherford left. “I have given my approval to Resolution 173, the Neutrality Legislation, which passed the Congress last week.” President Roosevelt had written.

  Standish picked up his jacket and ran toward the entrance to the legation yelling for Daniele as he did so. It took them ten minutes to reach the palace. The lower floor was crowded like almost any day at the Ghibbi. There were about three hundred people lounging in the courtyard, waiting to see or to talk with the emperor.

  “Hey, stranger. You must have something pretty important to bring you over here,” Ceseli said as Standish came abruptly into her office.

  “Know where Yifru is? He’s not in his office.”

  “Probably with the emperor.”

  Standish looked at his watch.

  “What’s the matter?” Ceseli asked. “You look worried.”

  “Congress has signed the Neutrality Act. And Roosevelt signed it. That’s what.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We can’t sell arms to Ethiopia. God, what do they think they’re doing? Assholes.”

  “Now what?” Ceseli asked, her voice quavering.

  “The guard said you were looking for me.” Yifru said, abruptly opening the door.

  “Rutherford thought you should see this from us directly. It couldn’t come at a worse time.”

  Yifru took the text of the President’s message and skimmed it. Then he reread it more carefully. “Let me see. This resolution provides for a licensing system for the control of carrying arms by American vessels. For the control of the use of American waters by foreign submarines. For the restriction of travel by American citizens on vessels of belligerent nations, and for the embargo of the export of arms to all belligerent nations.”

  “Here again,” President Roosevelt had written, “the policy of this government is definitely committed to the maintenance of peace and the avoidance of any entanglements that would lead us into conflict. At the same time, it is the policy of the government by every peaceful means and without entanglement to cooperate with other similarly minded governments to promote peace.”

  Yifru drew in his breath. “This is something we didn’t need. I guess we knew it might happen, but now it’s a fact. We need to look elsewhere for help.”

  “I’m sorry,” Standish said, earnestly shaking Yifru’s hand.

  All of a sudden Ceseli felt physically sick to her stomach. “It does say that the U.S. will cooperate with other peace wanting nations. Does that include the League?”

  “It does imply that,” Standish said. “Let’s hope so.”

  “Thank Rutherford for me.” Yifru said, still looking at the text. “I think I need to interrupt the emperor.”

  When he had gone, Ceseli looked at Standish. “Is this it?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Alone, Ceseli walked to her window. Outside, there was no sense of panic as the home guard drilled in the garden. She looked at the young boys who were smiling as she heard the bare feet padding rhythmically. Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra. Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra. Tears began to form in her eyes and she didn’t stop them as she continued to hear the Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra. Gra-Gra-Gra-Ken-Gra.

  CHAPTER 28

  ON SEPTEMBER 23 CAME the King’s Maskal, or the Dance of the Priests. The dim gebir hall of the great palace was opened to foreigners. It is at this festival that the emperor appears to his chiefs and priesthood, and acknowledges the triumph of the Ethiopian Coptic Christian Church over African paganism and popular beliefs.

  The windows and immense doors of the hall were covered with strips of orange silk, and the floor was strewn with reeds and strong-smelling mint leaves. Haile Sellassie on his bed throne, escorted by two of his battle impersonators and surrounded by the Diplomatic Corps, presided over the ceremony. Bouquets of spring iris and marigolds from the school gardens were presented to the emperor and the members of the Diplomatic Corps. All the diplomats, including the Italian Ambassador, kissed his hand.

  The palace servants in shimmering chartreuse satin coats and jodhpurs, carrying their whipping wands and long red swords, ushered in a hundred priests. Under the faded Ethiopian flags and fringed silk umbrellas, the priests sang in a chorus to five choirboy altos dressed in white robes and two tenors, whose solos were part of a composition in praise of the emperor.

  When the songs were over, the priests advanced toward a table in the middle of the hall, on which lay the Ge’ez bible. Slowly dancing and swaying rhythmically, crossing their silver-topped staves and shaking copper rattles to the accompaniment of two sweetly toned leather drums, they showed no emotion, for their eyes were lost in a measureless profundity. As a token of his loyalty to the Ethiopian Coptic Church, the emperor kissed the Bible.

  Four days later, it was the first day of the Feast of Maskal, celebrating the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the new agricultural year. The large yellow Maskal daisies erupted in millions over the fields around the city, carpeting them in astounding golden colors framed by the blue Eucalyptus forests. The end of the rains brought festive religious holidays.

  “We’ll go together,” Marco said. “Maskal commemorates the finding of what was believed to be the True Cross of Christ. The one he was crucified on.”

  By the time Ceseli and Marco walked into the square, the closely packed crowd was so dense it looked like everyone in Addis was there. Thousands of people held up long poles from which dangled the Maskal daisies.

  A colorful procession of priests in scarlet and magenta, deacons, and choirboys and girls wearing embroidered robes were walking around a huge pyre. They held ceremonial crosses and wooden torches decorated with olive leaves.

  Warriors had come wearing colorful costumes to posture and swing their swords, fire their guns and boast of their exploits in front of their emperor. Jousting, cavorting and slicing open ghostly enemies, they told their emperor that it was high time he did the same.

  “At the Maskal, everyone gives advice to the emperor,” Marco said. “They’re begging him for rifles instead of spears.”

  “The other day there were thousands at the palace screaming for guns, not sticks. It’s pathetic,” she said, squeezing his hand.

  As the sun began to set, the torchbearers lit the slender pyramid-shaped structure. On top was a cross that was made from the yellow daisies. The sky opened, in a final deluge, drowning the holidaymakers and the flowers.

  But in the North, in Tigre, the earth was already dry. Yifru knew that the emperor was upset. These same Maskal daisies that now heralded the end of the rainy season, would also signal the beginning of war.

  Since May, sitting in his large office, the emperor had studied his options and knew they weren’t good. He knew all too well that Ethiopia was pitifully short of everything it needed to survive. Yet, despite the gravity of the situ
ation, he remained adamant that he would not make any concessions that would damage the integrity and sovereignty of his country.

  He was now focusing all of his attention on Geneva hoping that the League would somehow step in to keep his nation free. He followed closely the positions of the League’s most powerful members: Britain and France. He was acutely aware of the fact that, unfortunate as it was for Ethiopia, the English and French ruling classes, both with their own empires in Africa, shared more in common with white Europeans, even the Italians, than with black Africans.

  In March, the emperor had gratefully accepted the Fuhrer’s secret offer to let him purchase German weapons. In April, while the Italians were hosting the leaders of Great Britain and France and sealing Ethiopia’s fate at the lovely Italian resort at Stresa, he sent Yifru to Berlin to arrange payment for the arms and their transfer to Ethiopia. The armaments had been ingeniously smuggled into Ethiopia in the piano crates on the same train as Ceseli. Their pitifully small numbers only reminded him of his huge lack of armaments.

  But everything deteriorated over the summer. Just the day before, the emperor had received a telegram from his ambassador in Geneva informing him for the first time that within the League, everyone now agreed that war was not only inevitable, but imminent.

  The next day, September 28, Haile Sellassie wrote the orders for the general mobilization of his people and put it into the drawer of his desk. Then Yifru prepared for him a telegram to Geneva.

  “We must obey the League and keep the thirty kilometer neutral zone,” he said, while dictating the telegram.

  “Earnestly beg Council to take as soon as possible all precautions against Italian aggression since circumstances have become such that we should fail in our duty if we delayed any longer the general mobilization necessary to ensure defense of our country. Our contemplated mobilization will not affect your previous orders to keep our troops at a distance from the frontier and we confirm our resolution to cooperate closely with the League of Nations in all circumstances.”

  Geneva did not reply.

  To the north, in Eritrea, the land was already dry. In Asmara, the capitol of the Italian colony of Eritrea, Bruno Zeri looked out over the yellow Maskal daisies. The Eritreans, who shared the same traditions as the Ethiopians, were celebrating the second day of Maskal. War whoops, tom-toms, rifle shots and shouting filled the air. The Italian colonial native soldiers, known as Askari, in their khaki uniforms with their cheeks and foreheads painted with their battalion colors, waved flaming branches above their heads and the hot embers rained down on the crowd.

  Zeri flinched as hundreds of the soldiers ran barefoot over a bed of live coals. Others danced with their spears overhead making mock charges against the enemy, be it lion or man.

  In 1869, the Italian Rubattino Steamship Company, needing a coaling station in the Red Sea, bought the Bay of Assab and its miserable oasis from the local sultan. On January 1, 1890, the Italian government christened the new colony Eritrea in remembrance of the Erythraean Sea as the ancient Romans had called this sea. Now, the red, white and green Italian flag flew over a strip of torrid, barren and fever-ridden Red Sea Coast six hundred seventy miles long.

  The Italian Consulate now dominated the port where seagulls floated like clouds over the Regina Margherita dock and as many as forty ships were in the bay waiting to unload.

  In this Italian colony, it was General Emilio De Bono, who was presiding over the festivities. Bald and frail looking at sixty-nine, De Bono, with his white goatee, was the oldest of the original Fascist leaders and a devoted follower of Mussolini. The Minister of the Italian Colonies as well as the Italian Commanding General, De Bono had spent the last ten months in Asmara preparing for the invasion.

  Arriving in Eritrea the week before, Zeri found De Bono tired, nervous, and upset. As the time for invasion neared, he was overwhelmed by doubts that the army was still not ready.

  In his spare time, Zeri explored Asmara. Most of the city looked like a construction site, as under De Bono’s orders new buildings, hangars, and airports were built, joined by warehouses, arsenals, offices, barracks, and repair shops. Three new state-controlled brothels were opened and a Fascist clubhouse added.

  On the evening of the second day, he came upon a small garage sandwiched between two parking lots. There was a sign above the door: the Office for Gas. In the few minutes before he was expelled, he saw the canisters clearly marked “Yperite”. Yperite—mustard gas—dichlorodiethyl sulfide S(CH2 CH2Cl)2. Later, he learned that the warehouse already contained one hundred thirty tons of mustard gas in well-marked containers and that there were some one hundred fifty thousand gas masks.

  That evening Zeri sat deep in thought. Here he was, in Eritrea, about to write about a war. He would be participating in a war. He thought back on his conversation with Ceseli. Zeus or Hera?

  He was extremely upset. The Geneva Convention of 1926, signed to avoid a repetition of such barbarity as the Germans had perpetrated during World War I, specifically forbade the use of mustard gas or any other poisonous gas. What was Mussolini thinking? Who would know better than he what destruction Yperite would cause? The Italian army, when commanded by General Pietro Badoglio, was gassed by the Germans during World War I at the Isonzo River. Zeri, then a conscript, spent months recovering in a military sanitarium. Hundreds died.

  War was imminent, and hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians would die. Italians too would die for this futile gesture. The question was when?

  The answer came the following night, September 29, 1935, when General De Bono received the telegram for which he was both waiting and in dread.

  “No message of war at the beginning. It is absolutely necessary to put an end to all delays. I order you to initiate advance in the early hours in the early hours of three, I say, three October. I await an immediate confirmation. Mussolini.”

  CHAPTER 29

  THE PRE-DAWN LIGHT WAS teeming with waiting troops. The day had come. It was 4:45 a.m. on October 3, 1935. Some one hundred thousand Italian soldiers were ready for the invasion of Ethiopia. Each man had been issued one hundred and ten rounds of ammunition, four days rations, and a quart of water.

  General Emilio De Bono’s headquarters was on the brow of the Coatit Mountain, eight miles from the Abyssinian border. The maps on the table were just visible as his staff conferred, the gray-green of their uniforms barely distinguishable in the subdued light.

  Nearby a small group of war correspondents set up their typewriters on a sandbagged parapet. It was 4:50 a.m. Bruno Zeri looked out over the Asmara plain half a mile below. He could just discern the shallow waters of the Mareb River, the border between Abyssinia and Eritrea. Feeling that he was as ready as he ever would be, he lit one of his precious Tuscan cigars.

  Zeri knew that this stream of water, which flowed between bare foothills, could hardly be called an obstacle, but to the one hundred thousand men who would cross it that morning, it had a shameful significance. It was the border imposed by the Ethiopian Emperor, Menelik II after the shattering defeat of the Italians at Adowa in which thousands of Italian and Eritrean soldiers were killed, and thousands more taken prisoner.

  For these young conscripts, crossing the Mareb River was symbolic. They were proving to the world that they were avenging their dead, hurling defiance at the colonial powers that opposed this war, and showing the whole world that a new generation of Italians were soldiers in the tradition of the Roman Empire.

  Slowly, to the east, melon turned to peach and deepened to rose. Now the muted silhouette of the Danakil Mountains appeared. Apart from the subdued clicking of telegraph instruments, there was total silence. As the minutes ticked away, the war correspondents realized that the bluffing and the daydream diplomacy were over. A huge war machine was now ready and waiting only for the appointed minute. The correspondent of the Associated Press punched out the first bulletin that would headline the newspapers of the world: Italians commenced the invasion of Abyssinia at 5 a.m.
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br />   At exactly five, the time Mussolini had chosen, the Eritrean cavalry units nudged their horses into the shallow water, emerged on the other bank, and rode southward through the wide Hasamo plain into a largely treeless, broken, difficult countryside.

  De Bono and his chief of staff paced back and forth on the plateau. Through field glasses they watched the endless lines of men wading across the wide river, their rifles held high over their heads, their banners waving, trumpets blaring, and soldiers singing. They marched to “Youth,” the lightly played Fascist marching anthem. The veterans in this endless human chain could think with nostalgia of a day in 1922 when they had marched on the Eternal City of Rome to make Fascism the party of the state.

  After the cavalry came the Italian light tanks, then the infantry, many of them blond-haired teenagers from the northern Italian provinces. Attached to their Panama style sun helmets and sticking from the barrels of their guns were freshly picked yellow Maskal daisies. Behind them were the mule trains of the supply corps, miles of heavily burdened animals carrying ammunition, rifles, machine guns, food, and water.

  By nightfall, the three Italian columns had seized two thousand square miles of Abyssinia. Not a shot had been fired.

  CHAPTER 30

  LATER THAT MORNING, FIVE thousand faithful subjects crowded into the square in front of Menelik’s imperial palace. They had been there since dawn waiting for confirmation of the rumor that most of them already believed.

  Ceseli and Marco watched from her office window as five servants emerged from the palace carrying the great lion-skinned war drum of the empire and the heavy, crooked club. The drummer began a series of deep, powerful single thuds that could be heard for miles.

  The people of Addis Ababa knew what it must mean. They hurried through the palace gates to the imperial residence, where the royal family and important government officials were standing on the second floor balcony.