Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers

by Frances Vieta

  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 Oc
tober 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.

  CHAPTER 35

  CESELI LOOKED AT HER favorite tree in the compound garden. The cat’s cradle-like spidery needle branches of the Acacia were perfectly symmetrical in their asymmetry. She reminded herself to paint it.

  It was November 11, the anniversary of Armistice Day of World War I, and a month since Ras Mulugeta, the Minister of War, led his army north. The small Anglo-American colony was joined by journalists of the London Times and Reuters. They were sitting in the garden after the Padré’s tedious sermon on the lessons learned from the war. Even Rutherford had been forced, grudgingly, to say a few inanities on hopes for world peace.

  “Oh, by the way, Ceseli,” Standish said as the others were leaving, “you remember what I said about Mussolini getting the blessing of the Catholic Church?”

  “Yes. That it would give him a sacred mission. To civilize the Ethiopians.”

  “Well, it’s now official. The Bishop of Milan has declared his full approval.”

  After dinner, they learned that the Ethiopians had ambushed an Italian motorized column in the south along the border with Italian Somaliland.

  “Wonderful news! That calls for a drink! After Gugsa, they needed a morale booster. You’re sure it’s true?” Rutherford asked.

  “I’m reading from a dispatch that Yifru just sent over.”

  “Can you read it out loud, please?” Ceseli asked.

  “It’s from the Ogaden. In Italian Somaliland. When the Italians took the last Ethiopian outpost of Gorahai, the Ethiopians fled north. General Rudolfo Graziani, the Italian commander in the south, sent bombers after them. The Ethiopians soldiers stopped for water at a watering place named Anale. Their tires were flat and radiators were steaming. They took their wounded off the trucks and put them on the ground. When the Ethiopian commanding officer heard gunfire he ordered his troops to seek refuge in the bush. The Italian tanks pursued them. One of the tanks ran over their wounded men.”

  “Ran over the wounded men?” Ceseli asked incredulous. “With a tank?”

  “The Italians are following orders,” Rutherford said calmly, “and I’m sure they’re not pretty ones.”

  “But running over wounded soldiers with a tank!” She could picture the tanks moving forward, tilting back and forth, like a giant Praying Mantis, as they ran over the bodies and she could hear the screams of the wounded soldiers.

  “It’s war, Ceseli, not a sewing bee.”

  Ceseli looked at Warren, speechless, as she rubbed her father’s dog tag. “I don’t care what it is. That’s no longer human, or humane.”

  “I suspect the tankers couldn’t see very much.”

  “Are you justifying running over the wounded?” Ceseli was incensed.

  “Certainly not! Just stating a fact,” Standish replied. “The tank’s portholes are pretty small, and if it’s a regular day in the Ogaden, it must have been a furnace. The Italians stopped and must have come out of the tank not knowing that the Ethiopians were hiding in the bush.”

  “So?” Ceseli and Rutherford asked together.

  “They killed the tanker and the gunner. Altogether, they took over three tanks. The rest of the Italians turned and fled.”

  “That’s too bad,” Ceseli quipped. “They should have got them all. I’m tired of hearing what great soldiers the Italians are.”

  “I don’t think anybody ever said they were great soldiers. With the possible exception of Il Duce,” Rutherford added.

  When Ceseli got back to her tukul that evening, she noticed a letter sitting on the table on the porch. There was no stamp, and the envelope was creased and dirty.

  My beloved Ceseli,

  How are things in Addis?

  I hope this finds you at work on your Bible.

  I think of you all the time, Ceseli, and of how I would like to grow old with you. How do you think you’d feel about living in Florence? It’s a wonderful city.

  I would like to ask you to write to me, but there is no chance that I would receive your letters. Keep them in your Bible, and I will read them when this hell on earth is over.

  Be well, my darling. It won’t be forever.

  Marco

  Ceseli reread the letter, then folded it and put it in her pocket. What had happened to her letters? She rubbed her forehead hard trying to straighten her thoughts. This war was out of all proportions. Did civilized nations run over the barefoot enemy in tanks? Her whole concept of humanity had changed dramatically in the last few hours. There must be some way to help these people. She thought of Marco. He had the answer. Saving lives was important. Was there something she could do?

  CHAPTER 36

  WHILE CESELI WAS THINKING of ways to help the Ethiopians, Bruno Zeri nudged his mule forward. He did not suffer from vertigo, or at least he never had, but he was reluctant to look down at the steep gorge below. The narrow path appeared to be non-existent, but the mule didn’t seem to mind.

  After the invasion, Zeri had gone with General Oreste Mariotti. Zeri respected Mariotti as a bold and fearless officer. They were now less than fifty miles northeast of their destination of Makalle.

  It was about 9:30 in the morning, when the Italian column entered the Ende Gorge, a narrow, east-west ravine about half a mile long. The stiff-fezzed Eritrean Askaris were in the front followed by recently recruited and undrilled Danakil tribesmen who were watching for the enemy. Flanking parties marched on each side of the column. Then came the mules carrying Mariotti, his staff, and finally Zeri. A long supply train followed.

  Despite the peacefulness of the morning, Mariotti was worried. Something didn’t jibe with the birds chirping and twittering in the bushes. As the column moved forward, he noticed a ridge right in front of him and straight across the path his army must take.

  “Mount the heavy guns,” he ordered, blowing his whistle, never changing his stern expression.

  Hurrying to obey the order, a non-commissioned officer had taken only three steps before a burst of rifle fire hit him in the groin and right knee. Zeri’s orderly was hit in the ankle and grabbed the mule’s neck to stop his fall. Zeri jumped off the mule and using it as a shield, held tightly to the reins.

  “Avanti! Take cover!”

  Machine gun fire started, but it was difficult to locate its source. The tree covered walls of the gorge were so steep and so narrow that echoes distorted the direction of the sound.

  The Ethiopians had chosen an excellent position from which to close off the gorge at both ends and obliterate the Italian column, almost at their leisure.

  Zeri watched as waves of Ethiopians, whooping and yelling, came storming down the hillsides, like an angry sea crashing against a rocky headland. They rushed forward, their white and angry eyes glaring as they yelled in unison:

  “Adowa!”

  “Adowa!”

  “Adowa!”

  The Italian guns were drowned out by the crescendo of their war cries. Bullets made no impression on the densely packed ranks. The blood splattered against their white shammas, but as soon as one wave fell, another began.

  Seeing this massacre, some of the Danakil tribesmen, who were part of the Italian column, bolted toward the rear, throwing down their rifles and running helter-skelter, trying to escape from the brutal assaults and the gorge.

  Zeri watched as the white Italian officers stepped into line across the gorge cutting off their escape. Seeing this, Zeri wasn’t sure whether the Danakil
s were trying to avoid fighting their brother Africans, or trying to escape. Firing directly into these soldiers, the Italian officers forced them back to their fighting positions.

  When the fighting stopped soon after nightfall, the Italians knew that their prospects were bleak. Escape was impossible. There were probably more than five thousand Ethiopians poised on the parapets with nothing stopping them from continuing their slaughter until the entire Italian column was wiped out.

  “It’s hopeless,” Mariotti said. “Let’s pray God won’t abandon us.” Then, he turned and took a Beretta from his saddlebag. “I think you should have this,” he said.

  “I’m not any good,” Zeri said, looking at the pistol.

  “If you had said that earlier, I would have found someone to teach you. But it’s not against the enemy. It’s for you. Put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. The Ethiopians are said to emasculate their prisoners,” Mariotti said. “I can’t imagine that would be much fun.”

  The emasculation bit was in the propaganda booklets distributed to the Italian troops. Zeri doubted its veracity, but took the Beretta.

  “And now get some sleep and hope you can give it back to me tomorrow.”

  As the first light began to filter into the narrow gorge, Zeri woke from a troubled doze. He felt himself nervously waiting for the outcry that would signal the new assault. He watched the desperate men all around him looking up toward the heights of the gorge. As they cocked their rifles they were tense and agitated. Were they all thinking the same thoughts, Zeri wondered? Was he ready to die? Is anyone ever ready to die alone in a foreign land? To die for what was another man’s dream, another man’s madness?

  As the light increased, the silence continued. Zeri began to realize that there would be no fighting. They had been released from death. He knew that the Ethiopians were no longer on their ramparts. With victory in their grasp, they had withdrawn during the night. In their minds, they knew that there was no reason to fight: They had already won.

  CHAPTER 37